This paper focuses on the reading and educational practices of common soldiers during the First World War. It argues that the question of how war libraries were imagined and constructed by civilians needs to be framed in the larger context of pre-war Edwardian debates surrounding the "value of books" in society. Indeed, it was within this debate that "humanities activists" first sought to play a role in times of crisis, confident that the war library operation had the blessing of prominent authors. The paper analyses the experience of British self-improvers at the front, their enduring connections with adult education institutions at home and the opportunities that the war opened up to new Australasian common readers fighting as part of the colonial expeditionary forces.