Charles Yale Harrison was born in 1898 in the eastern American state of Philadelphia. His family later moved to Montreal in Canada. He apparently left school during Grade Four after having an argument with a teacher about Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. At sixteen, he took a job with the Montreal Star newspaper [which shut down in 1979 after protracted strike action]. He then enlisted in the Royal Montreal Regiment and fought on the Western Front in France and Belgium in World War One. He was wounded while fighting in the Battle of Amiens in 1918, and was evacuated to Britain, recuperating for the rest of the war. He then returned to Montreal.

Harrison managed a movie theatre for a time, and then he returned to New York to work in both journalism and public relations, though he preferred to be a writer. Generals Die in Bed was published in 1928 in serialized form in periodicals in both America and Germany. The memoirs, when released in book form, became a best-seller. They also created controversy in their candid relations of Canadian soldiers looting the town of Arras and of shooting unarmed German soldiers. At the time, Generals Die in Bed was compared to classic war works such as All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms.

Harrison published other works, but none was as successful as Generals Die in Bed. His Thank God for my Heart Attack, of 1949, is recognized as an early example of the self-help genre.

All of Harrison’s works went out of print after his death from a heart condition in 1954. However, a small Canadian publisher reissued Generals Die in Bed in paperback form during the 1970s. It has been in print ever since, and has gained a certain reputation in Canada among both the literati and military enthusiasts. In 2002, it was re-edited into a work for young people.

Harrison married three times. His first wife died. He remarried, and then divorced his second wife. He was survived by his third wife at his death. Judith Rossner, his niece, became a successful writer, due to his encouragement of her earlier work. Her 1975 novel Looking for Mr Goodbar being her best selling novel that was also made into a film in 1977.

The study map for Generals Die in Bed is a visual representation of all key aspects of the text including:

• Genre
• Structure
• Historical Issues
• Style
• Background Notes
• Summary
• Character Profiles
• Themes and Issues
• Sample Examination Questions
  
  
  

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