Starting in 2014, David Hargreaves marked the centenary of World War I by detailing the week-by-week unfolding of the conflict in an online journal, using first-hand accounts by soldiers and civilians alike. By 2018, when he and his co-editor Margaret-Louise O’Keeffe were looking to publish, the project had grown into a manuscript of 780,000 words – an unpublishable prospect by any traditional metric. Their only option was to try something more ambitious.

In partnership with Whitefox, the journal was transformed into a beautifully presented four-volume box set of almost 2,300 pages, with an RRP of £100. To help fund production, the authors adopted a DIY approach to crowdfunding, crafting a heartfelt email for academic contacts and journal subscribers, asking if they’d consider pre-ordering box sets. Their campaign quickly amassed almost 300 sponsors for the incredibly bespoke publication, which went on to sell several thousand copies and receive glowing reviews in The Times and Spectator.