Johnny Got His Gun

The searing portrayal of war that has stunned and galvanized generations of readers

It was the war to end all wars, the global struggle that would finally make the world safe for democracy—at any cost. But one American soldier has paid a price beyond measure. And within the disfigured flesh that was once a vision of youth lives a spirit that cannot accept what the world has become.

An immediate bestseller upon its original publication in 1939, Dalton Trumbo’s stark, profoundly troubling masterpiece about the horrors of World War I brilliantly crystallized the uncompromising brutality of war and became the most influential protest novel of the Vietnam era. With a compelling new foreword by E. L. Doctorow, Johnny Got His Gun—an undisputed classic of antiwar literature—as as timely as ever.

“A terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity.” —The Washington Post

“Powerful . . . an eye-opener.” —Michael Moore

“Mr. Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury amounting to eloquence.” —New York Times

“A book that can never be forgotten by anyone who reads it.” —Saturday Review