There could be no truer witness to the enormity of the First World War and its terrible cost in lives than the memorials and war cemeteries along the old Western Front. In Canada, no less than in the other dominions of the British Empire, the war left a conflicting legacy of pride and sorrow that endures to this day.
The soaring Vimy Memorial, the Brooding Soldier, and the monuments honouring Canada’s significant contribution to the Allied victory symbolize the spirit of shared sacrifice and nationhood that emerged from the crucible of the war. But alongside this official commemoration there exists a poignant, strangely overlooked, record of the grief and search for consolation among the Canadian populace in the years after the Armistice. This has come down in the personal inscriptions which the Imperial War Graves Commission invited next of kin to have engraved on the headstones of the fallen. Simple, heartfelt, often gems of compression, these farewells preserve the voice of Canada’s bereaved, the parents, the wives, the children, who were left to mourn and to seek meaning and comfort in their loss.
This book offers an anthology of epitaphs drawn from the war cemeteries where Canadian soldiers lie buried in Flanders and France. Photographs and war art transport readers to the sites, and each chapter reviews the sources and themes of the epitaphs to establish their place in the national memory of the First World War.

Eric McGeer holds a PhD from the Université de Montréal and teaches at St. Clement’s School in Toronto. He is the author of Words of Valediction and Remembrance: Canadian Epitaphs of the Second World War and several books on warfare and law in ancient Byzantium.

Terry Copp is Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University and director of the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies. He is a regular contributor to Legion Magazine and the author of numerous books including The Brigade: The Fifth Canadian Infantry Brigade in World War II, Cinderella Army: The Canadians in Northwest Europe, 1944–1945, and “Fields of Fire”: the Canadians in Normandy

Matt Symes is a PhD Student at Wilfrid Laurier University where he is studying sport and leisure in the Second World War.

Eric McGeer's profile page

Terry Copp is the director of the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies and a professor emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is the author or co-author of fourteen books and many articles on the Canadian role in the Second World War, including travel guides to the Canadian battlefields. Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy won the 2004 Distinguished Book Award for non-US history from the American Society for Military History.

Matt Symes is a PhD candidate at Wilfrid Laurier University. He works as the publications manager for the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies and as the online editor for canadianmilitaryhistory.ca. With Eric McGeer, Matt has published three Battlefield Guides on the Italian Campaign in the Second World War.

Nick Lachance is a mature student finishing his BA in Honours History at Wilfrid Laurier University. As a research assistant at LCMSDS he manages the digitization of the 300,000 Second World War aerial reconnaissance photographs the center has in its possession. A freelance photographer and photojournalist, many of Lachance’s photos appear in this and other LCMSDS publications.

Terry Copp's profile page

Steve Douglas' profile page

• Short-listed, ForeWord Indies War & Military

Canada’s Dream Shall Be of Them is a beautifully produced volume, including not just Douglas’s stunning photographs, but also reproductions of many paintings that are part of the Beaverbrook Collection of War Art held at the Canadian War Museum. This book would be of use to any person with a general interest in Canada and the First World War or in commemoration or memory studies.

Library Bookwatch

Unique, compelling, memorable, thoughtful and thought-provoking, Canada's Dream Shall Be of Them: Canadian Epitaphs of the Great War is an extraordinary and highly recommended addition for both community and academic library collections. Indeed, Canada's Dream Shall Be of Them would make an appropriate and enduringly appreciated Memorial Fund acquisition selection for library collections.

Michael J. Carson