1918 dawns desolate over the fields of Flanders. Decimated by the worst war the world has ever seen, neither British nor German troops can break the deadlock of the trenches. After four years of murderous stalemate, peace seems buried for ever. But finally, one by one, the guns fall silent...

By the Green of the Spring relives the last terrible months of the Great War and the uneasy, exhausted peace which followed it. From the North-West Frontier to the war in France and the civil war in Ireland, John Masters follows the fortunes of four Kent families – the Cates, the Rownlands, the Strattons and the Gorses – through the cataclysm that ended the golden Edwardian dream for ever.

By the Green of the Spring, first published in 1981, is the third, self-contained volume of the Loss of Eden trilogy, a magnificent conclusion to an enthralling epic of war and peace by a major contemporary novelist.