Letter to an Unknown Soldier (2014)

“Letter to an Unknown Soldier” is a participatory writing project created by novelist and theatre-maker Neil Bartlett in collaboration with Kate Pullinger. They described the project as “a new kind of memorial, one made only of words, by thousands of people”. It was commissioned by 14-18 NOW to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One, along with other 107 projects realised by 420 contemporary artists in more than 220 locations across the UK. “Letter to an Unknown Soldier’ was inspired by the statue of the unknown soldier holding a letter in his hand that stands on Platform One of Paddington Station in London, created by Charles Sargeant Jagger. Pullinger and Bartlett invited people to stop for a moment and think about the war, asking: “If you were able to send a letter to this soldier, a man who served and was killed during World War One, what would you write?”.

The project was open to the public between 28th June and 4 August 2014. All 21439 letters submitted in this period were published and archived on the project website. They took various forms – printed, handwritten, written as a poem, accompanied with picture(s). A selection of 132 letters was published by William Collins as a book, edited by Pullinger and Bartlett.

In December 2023 the project’s website ( 1418now.org.uk ) was closed. Unfortunately, due to data protection, we are unable to archive “Letter to an Unknown Soldier” here. The British Library has all archival materials linked to the project and when these materials are made accessible to the public, we will update information here. Check out the screenshots slideshow on the right to see some archival visual materials. You can also view a recording of Kate reading her letter to an unknown soldier on Youtube, or see Kate’s TEDx talk on the project.