When a collection of short stories written by literary unknowns achieves nationwide attention through sympathetic reviews in the leading book review columns across the country, and three pages in Life magazine, the casual reader assumes something unusual has been written. When this book is not replete with scenes of sex (although one such story included might recommend the book on this basis), the bystander should be poring over its contents to find the reason for all this publicity. In "The Purple Testament," he will find himself perusing not outstanding technical composition but written fragments of man.

Fifty-three disabled veterans in an English class at American University in Washington found themselves writing short stories of their most personal experiences and thoughts, the majority of them concerning the war. These amputees were not geniuses undiscovered. But through the understanding and encouragement of their professor, Don Wolfe--one of those men whose work is not his job but his life--these accounts became so telling in their moving directness that Wolfe decided to obtain the publication of these stories. Deciding at the outset that all profits would go to the disabled authors, he felt more and more impelled at each defeat to continue in his attempt. The daily despairs of the novice in the field were lessened by the agreement of a small publishing house in Pennsylvania to produce 2000 copies at Wolfe's own expense. More weeks passed after this, with no appreciable notice. Finally, a copy came into the hands of one of the directors of a large publishing firm, who saw in it what had been perceived by Professor Wolfe many months before. From then on, during the past two months, the book has had remarkable publicity.

What commands in this work is its contribution to an understanding of the most sordid and emotional side of war and of the lives of the men who fight it. No American with a conscience, no American with an eye to the past and an ear to the future can ignore it. These fifty-three may not be full-grown Hemingways, Dos Passos, or Remarques, but in their simplicity and humanness they have reached points of literary clarity and feeling that are difficult to surpass.