Book description
In what is one of the finest autobiographies to come out of the First
World War, the distinguished poet Edmund Blunden records his experiences
as an infantry subaltern in France and Flanders. Blunden took part in
the disastrous battles of the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele, describing
the latter as 'murder, not only to the troops, but to their singing
faiths and hopes'. In his compassionate yet unsentimental prose, he
tells of the heroism and despair found among the officers. Blunden's
poems show how he found hope in the natural landscape; the only thing
that survives the terrible betrayal enacted in the Flanders fields.
The poet and critic Edmund Blunden was born in Yalding, Kent in 1896. He
studied at Oxford, was professor of English literature at Tokyo from
1924-7 and fellow of Merton College, Oxford from 1931. He joined the
staff of 'The Times Literary Supplement' in 1943, and from 1953 lectured
at the University of Hong Kong. From1966-8 he was professor of poetry at
Oxford.
