Wilfred Owen

Jane Potter

This new, select edition of Wilfred Owen's letters provides a fresh understanding of the poet's life in his own words. Wilfred Owen's fame as one of the great war poets of the twentieth century is unsurpassed, with Dulce et Decorum est possibly the defining piece of World War literature. Owen's letters reveal the man behind the cultural icon; human with all his foibles, whose 25 years were marked by great highs and lows, by emerging modernity, and the violence of war. Evocative, lyrical, and often surprisingly funny, the letters act as both autobiography and companion to the famous war poems. He was both an accomplished poet and one of the finest letter-writers of the twentieth century. Accompanied by new notes and new introduction, as well as previously redacted and omitted material, the new edition of Owen's Selected Letters brings together past and contemporary scholarship to provide fresh insights into Owen's character and poetic development.

Selected Letters of Wilfred Owen

Situating First World War poetry in a truly global context, this book reaches beyond the British soldier-poet canon. A History of World War One Poetry examines popular and literary, ephemeral and enduring poems that the cataclysm of 1914-1918 inspired. Across Europe, poets wrestled with the same problem: how to represent a global conflict, dominated by modern technology, involving millions of combatants and countless civilians. For literary scholars this has meant discovering and engaging with the work of men and women writing in other languages, on other fronts, and from different national perspectives. Poems are presented in their original languages and in English translations, some for the very first time, while a Coda reflects on the study and significance of First World War poetry in the wake of the Centenary. A History of World War One Poetry offers a new perspective on the literary and human experience of 1914-1918.

A History of World War One Poetry

Andrew Maunder

Trudi Tate

Angela K Smith

Given the popular and scholarly interest in the First World War it is surprising how little contemporary literary work is available. This five-volume reset edition aims to redress this balance, making available an extensive collection of newly-edited short stories, novels and plays from 1914–19.

British Literature of World War I, Volume 2

British Literature of World War I, Volume 5

British Literature of World War I, Volume 4

Carol Acton

Working in a world of hurt fills a significant gap in the studies of the psychological trauma wrought by war. It focuses not on soldiers, but on the men and women who fought to save them in casualty clearing stations, hospitals and prison camps. The writings by doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and other medical personnel reveal the spectrum of their responses that range from breakdown to resilience. Through a rich analysis of both published and unpublished personal from the First World War in the early twentieth century to Iraq in the early twenty-first, Acton and Potter put centre stage the letters, diaries, memoirs and weblogs that have chronicled physical and emotional suffering, many for the first time. Wide-ranging in scope, interdisciplinary in method, and written in a scholarly yet accessible style, Working in a world of hurt is essential reading for lecturers and students as well as the general reader.

Trauma and resilience in the narratives of medical personnel in warzones

Working in a world of hurt

Modernist texts and writings of protest have until now received most of the critical attention of literary scholars of the First World War. Popular literature with its penchant for predictable storylines, melodramatic prose, and patriotic rhetoric has been much-maligned or at the very least ignored. Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print: Women's Literary Responses to the Great War redresses the balance. It turns the spotlight on the novels and memoirs of women writers - many of whom are now virtually forgotten - that appealed to a British reading public hungry for amusement, news, and above all, encouragement in the face of uncertainty and grief. The writers of 1914-18 had powerful models for interpreting their war, as a consideration of texts from the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 shows. They were also bolstered by wartime publishing practices that reinforced the sense that their books, whether fiction or non-fiction, were not simply 'light' entertainment but a powerful agents of propaganda. Generously illustrated, Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print is a scholarly yet accessible illumination of a hitherto untapped resource of women's writing and is an important new contribution to the study of the literature of the Great War.

Women's Literary Responses to the Great War 1914-1918

Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print

Jon Stallworthy

Wilfred Owen is the poet of pity, the voice of the soldier maimed, blinded, traumatised and killed, not just in the Great War, but in all wars since, so resonant has his message become. Although he saw only five of his poems published in his lifetime, he left behind a portfolio of poetry and letters that created a powerful legacy.This generously illustrated book tells the story of Wilfred Owen's life and work anew, from his birth in 1893 until his death one week before the Armistice on 4 November 1918. It chronicles Owen's journey from a romantic youth, steeped in the poetry of Keats, to mature soldier awakened to the horrors of the Western Front. Drawing on rich archival material such as personal books, artefacts, family photographs and numerous manuscripts, the volume takes a fresh look at Owen's apprenticeship and eventual mastery of poetry, giving a comprehensive view of the relationship between his lived experience and his writing. Those already familiar with or well-versed in Owen's work will find new material in this book, and those coming to Owen for the first time will enjoy a well researched, yet accessible, illustrated introduction to one of the twentieth century's greatest poets.

An Illustrated Life

British Literature of World War I

Ralf Schneider

The First World War has given rise to a multifaceted cultural production like no other historical event. This handbook surveys British literature and film about the war from 1914 until today. The continuing interest in World War I highlights the interdependence of war experience, the imaginative re-creation of that experience in writing, and individual as well as collective memory. In the first part of the handbook, the major genres of war writing and film are addressed, including of course poetry and the novel, but also the short story; furthermore, it is shown how our conception of the Great War is broadened when looked at from the perspective of gender studies and post-colonial criticism. The chapters in the second part present close readings of important contributions to the literary and filmic representation of World War I in Great Britain. All in all, the contributions demonstrate how the opposing forces of focusing and canon-formation on the one hand, and broadening and revision of the canon on the other, have characterised British literature and culture of the First World War.

Handbook of British Literature and Culture of the First World War

Senior Lecturer in Publishing Jane Potter

Generously illustrated, Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print is a scholarly yet accessible illumination of a hitherto untapped resource of women's writing and makes an important new contribution to the study of the literature of the Great War."--BOOK JACKET.

Jane Potter

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