Selected Letters of Wilfred Owen

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.

Although Wilfred Owen wrote most of his surviving letters to one person - his mother - they show all facets of his personality as well as its remarkable focus. Reading this well-judged selection, which restores some previously redacted material, we see an impressionable literary adolescent turning into a clear-eyed war poet, while at the same time being reminded that his mental development was driven by intense personal feeling. This is what makes Owen a major letter-writer as well as a major poet. His heart and his head always marched in step with one another.

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