Henri Barbusse had experienced the fire of the trenches from 1915, first as a soldier and then as a stretcher-bearer. Writing chiefly from his experience in the hospitals, he recorded in twenty-four chapters his daily life and the “appalling, unnatural exhaustion, and water up to the belly, and mud, and the smell and the vile filth, floating on the voracious earth,” drawing on a war notebook in which he had set down his lived experience.
The novel was ready by the very end of the summer, and the idea of the Prix Goncourt was already taking shape in his publishers’ minds even before the contract was signed. The first chapters began appearing as a serial in the daily newspaper L’Œuvre on 3 August: the Fischer brothers, literary directors at Flammarion, sensed a good opportunity and contacted the author to buy the rights to Le Feu. On 26 October, on the eve of a preparatory meeting of the Académie, they wrote to him: “We have spoken of the possibility we foresee regarding the Goncourt. Certain conversations we have had these past days, notably with Paul Margueritte, lead us to believe we were not entirely mistaken. But we would have to move remarkably fast.”
Barbusse hesitated, being bound to other publishers, but the prospect of the Goncourt decided him. A week later the contract was signed — six days before the end of the serial publication (93 installments). On 15 November the text went to press and appeared just in time from Flammarion in early December, in an initial printing of 1,000 copies.
Barbusse won the Goncourt on the first ballot, on 15 December, with eight votes, without those of Léon Daudet or Elémir Bourges, as he had anticipated.
It may be noted that a special printing limited to 20 copies exists for the bibliophile society “Les XX,” all signed by the author. Its print run is limited to 20 copies.
A superb copy in a full contemporary binding by Vermorel.
Jean Norton Cru, Témoins, pp. 555–565; Talvart, I, 239.