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Richard van Emden

British writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ7330255
Source-derived summary

Richard van Emden is a British author and television documentary producer who specialises in the First World War.

Life

He interviewed over 270 veterans of the Great War and has written 16 books on the subject including the autobiography of Harry Patch, "The Last Fighting Tommy". He has also worked on more than a dozen television programmes on the First World War, including "Britain’s Last Tommies," "Britain’s Boy Soldiers," the award-winning "The Roses of No Man’s Land" and "War Horse: The Real Story."

He lives in West London.

Bibliography

Clouting, Benjamin (1996). Tickled to Death to Go: The memoirs of a cavalryman in the first world war. Spellmount Publishers Ltd. ISBN 978-1-873376-55-3.

Prisoners of the Kaiser, Pen and Sword Books (2000).

Last Man Standing: The Memoirs of a Seaforth Highlander during the Great War, Pen and Sword Books (2002)

The Trench: Experiencing Life on the Front Line 1916. London: Bantam Press.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Richard van Emden” is british writer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Richard, Emden and British, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1996, 2000, 2002, 1916—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1965-01-01. For this dossier, Richard, Emden and British is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british writer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7330255. VIAF identifies the subject as 71699683. The Library of Congress control number is no97023672. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 2000, 2002 and 1916.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Richard van Emden”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Richard van Emden primary sources, Richard van Emden archive and Richard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Richard van Emden”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Richard van Emden” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.