Bodies, Love, and Faith in the First World War ― Dardanella and Peter

This book explores the courtship and marriage of Gwyneth Murray, an English woman, and a Canadian, Harry Logan, who wrote in the personae of their vagina (Dardanella) and penis (Peter) during World War I. Through an analysis of their extensive daily correspondence over nearly a decade, it uncovers the couple’s changing attitudes to the intersection of sexuality and religion, to marriage and childrearing, as they navigated the transition from Victorian to modern values. By focusing on first-person narratives, this book enriches our understanding of gender identities revealing how porous the boundaries remained between notions of 'heterosexual' and 'same-sex' friendships. This study offers an unprecedented perspective on one couple’s sexual practices, which included mutual masturbation and oral sex, and constitutes one of the most intensive examinations of female attitudes to sexual pleasure in an era of female emancipation.

Nancy Christie is Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Previous publications include Engendering the State: Family, Work and Welfare in Canada (2000), which was awarded the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize for best book in Canadian history in 2001, and A Full-Orbed Christianity: The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada (1996).

Michael Gauvreau is Professor of History at McMaster University, Canada. Previous publications include The Catholic Origins of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution (2005), which was awarded the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize for best book in Canadian history in 2006, and The Hand of God: Claude Ryan and the Fate of Canadian Liberalism, 1925-1971 (2017).