Archives, Paratexts and Life Writing in the First World War

The chapters in this collection have demonstrated a range of ways the phrase 'medical paratext' can be conceptualised, and particularly the interactions between medical practice, medical texts, and their writers and readers. Focusing on the diaries of Canadian nurse-writers in the First World War (particularly the work of nursing sister Clare Gass and VAD Alice Lighthall), this chapter proposes that paratext can demonstrate the contemporary archiving and historiography of the authors' experience, and support their claims to authoritative writing - as military histories, as medical practitioners, and as women operating within male-dominated environments.