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Accompanied by new notes and a 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.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Selected Bibliography
- Abbreviations
- List of Illustrations
- Biographical Table
- Shrewsbury and Dunsden: 1902-1913
- Bordeaux, the Pyrenees, and Mérignac: 1913-1915
- The Artists' Rifles and Training: 1915-1916
- The Somme and Craiglockhart: 1917
- Scarborough and the Return to France: 1918
- Appendix A: My Dear Old Wolf by Harold Owen
- Appendix B: Locations of Owen's Manuscripts
- Index
About the author
Dr Jane Potter is Reader in Arts at Oxford Brookes University and teaches Publishing courses in the School of Arts. Her research focuses on the literature of the First World War and book history. Her publications include Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print: Women's Literary Responses to the Great War, 1914-1918 (Oxford University Press, 2005), Three Poets of the First World War: Ivor Gurney, Isaac Rosenberg and Wilfred Owen, eds. Jon Stallworthy
& Jane Potter (Penguin Classics, 2011), Wilfred Owen: An Illustrated Life (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2014), and, with Carol Acton, Working in a World of Hurt: Trauma and Resilience in the Narratives of Medical Personnel in
War Zones (Manchester University Press, 2015). She is also editor of A Cambridge History of World War One Poetry (Cambridge University Press).
Summary
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.
Additional text
This is a stunning achievement - and a surprising one, too, given the massive number of works that have explored Owen's life and work previously. Potter's introduction and notes, filled with astute observations, enrich the reading experience, making it accessible to scholars and general readers alike.
