How did family, relatives and friends grieve for the dead of the First World War? What were the forms in which the dead were remembered in families and local communities? How was death in action interpreted, and how were the bereaved comforted? The book deals with these questions using Italy as its exemplar. It takes as its sources the commemorative volumes which were widely published by middle-class families and their friends for individuals killed in action. They provide a unique testimony of how “the great seminal catastrophe of this century” and the trauma of death in war were processed in the European middle classes.