6 h 33 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 6 h 33 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Under fire, courage means trusting the men beside you—and doing the work they depend on.
In Grapes of Wrath, Boyd Cable brings the First World War close to the ordinary soldier. These short stories turn toward the trenches of France and Belgium, where men dig, carry, wait and advance. The stakes are immediate: survival, shared duty and the loyalty that holds small groups together under fire.
Cable writes while the war is still going on, drawing on his own service and experience of the Western Front. His attention rests less on generals and maps than on crews, platoons and batteries. Guns, barbed wire, shell holes and mud shape the fighting; comradeship shapes how men face it.
What you’ll discover
- War seen from the ranks Follow the soldiers whose digging, carrying and waiting form the daily work of war.
- Courage as shared work Discover how men depend on one another when danger tests the whole group.
- Guns, mud and battle Enter a landscape where artillery, wire and shell holes shape each advance.
- Loyalty under fire Feel the bonds that hold small groups together through strain and uncertainty.
- A title with echoes Explore a title whose winepress image carries biblical judgment and echoes an American hymn.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy war stories told from the trench, friendship across class lines, dry soldier humor, and close eyewitness detail of guns, dugouts, stretcher-bearers and the first tanks.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Four unlikely friends march toward the push
- A night beside the guns brings talk of death
- Through the trenches and across the open
- Captured ground, and a joke in the dugout
- Hours of punishment, and Pug's odd return
- Billy is hit, and the wire is cut
- Larry takes command in a small private fight
- Digging in under fire
- What the story is really about
Who’s who
- Larry ArundelA twenty-year-old from a good London family who is nervous at first but finds he can lead men under fire.
- Billy SimsonA former shop hand from the suburbs who dislikes needless risk and hopes for a wound that will send him home.
- Pug SneathA cheerful London street boy and tireless joker who is set on bringing home a German helmet as a souvenir.
- KentuckyJefferson Lee, a quiet American who joined the British army from conviction and watches his comrades with wonder.
- HarveyA steady bomber who fights beside Larry in a small trench battle and throws grenades until the last.
- ChickAn Anzac machine gunner who arrives with his mates just in time to help the Stonewalls.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 6 h 33 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear L'uva della collera in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
L'uva della collera
by Boyd Cable · 1917
Four friends from different walks of life move up to a great push, and one of them wants only a German helmet.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Would you slip away from a first-aid post for a chance to find a German helmet? Pug does.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Four unlikely friends march toward the push
The story opens with the Stonewalls battalion marching toward the front, fed by wild rumors and little else. Nobody in the ranks knows where they will fight or when. Each mile, the roar of the guns grows louder.
Four men of C Company stand out. Larry Arundel is twenty and has a partnership waiting in his father's London office. Billy Simson worked as an errand boy and counter hand in a suburban shop. Pug Sneath grew up as a London street boy, and Jefferson Lee, called Kentucky, is an American who joined the British army because he felt ashamed to sit out the war.
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What is Grapes of Wrath by Boyd Cable about?
It follows four friends of one British battalion, the Stonewalls, through a great push on the Western Front. The story includes shellfire, trench fighting and a counterattack, and shows what an ordinary private sees.
Is Grapes of Wrath by Boyd Cable a true story?
The author says it is not history, though it draws largely on the fighting at the Somme. The scenes are meant to match what thousands of real soldiers experienced. He writes much of it in the Somme area or between visits there.
Why is the book called Grapes of Wrath?
The title comes from the Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe, printed at the start. Its image of grapes crushed in divine judgment gives the story a moral frame.
The author
Boyd Cable
British war writer
Boyd Cable was the pen name of Ernest Andrew Ewart (1878–1943), a British writer. He lived in Britain and served in the British Army during the First World War. He wrote about the war in books including Between the Lines (1915), Action Front (1916), and Grapes of Wrath (1917).
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