British Poets of the Great War (Signed copy)

Signed by Fred D Crawford to historian Anne Powell

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First US edition, first printing. Hardback in dustwrapper. 24 × 16cm, 269pp.

Signed and dedicated by Fred Crawford to historian and author Anne Powell to the half title, and also with two typed letters signed and a Christmas card from Fred Crawford to Anne Powell.

Crawford offers a wide-ranging survey of British poets of the First World War, including minor, largely forgotten writers whose conventional responses are more culturally than aesthetically interesting. The major innovators (Edmund Blunden, Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, and Isaac Rosenberg) get attention too, as do others who saw the war in fresh ways. Crawford is fond of classifying poets; Sassoon, for example, appears in a chapter on satire and protest. There is also a chapter on women poets. Though it breaks little new critical ground, the book is a useful introduction, especially since it quotes more than 2000 lines of poetry, much unavailable in anthologies.

Condition

The book is in strong readable condition, though with some light spotted foxing to the page edges and prelims. The dustwrapper is tatty to the edges and a bit marked.