How complicit was the publishing industry in supporting British government censorship and propaganda during WW1?
Apart from propaganda, publishers issued a large volume of fiction during the Great War, much of which narrated the grim realities of war, while much else offered welcome escapism. The role which popular fiction played in World War One, both for those at home and those on the fighting fronts, is often overlooked. The following link is to a series of videos offering fresh perspectives on WW1 as its centenary fast approaches; included in the series is a lecture by Jane Potter (lecture #9) on the subject of popular fiction in the Great War: http://theopenacademy.com/content/first-world-war-new-perspectives
Deana Heath ‘Obscenity, Censorship and Modernity’ in A Companion to the History of the Book, ed. Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), pp. 508-519.
Jane Potter, ‘For Country, Conscience and Commerce: Publishers and Publishing, 1914–18’, Publishing in the First World War: Essays in Book History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 11-26.