Fall in, Ghosts
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Edmund Blunden (1896–1974) moved among the ghosts of the Great War every day of his long life, having survived the battles of Ypres and the Somme. His classic prose memoir, Undertones of War, and his early edition of Wilfred Owen’s poems were just two examples of the ways in which he sought to convey his war experience, and to keep faith with his comrades in arms. His poetry is suffused by this experience, and he was haunted by it throughout his writing life, as the men with whom he had served gradually joined the ranks of the departed.
This selection of Blunden’s prose about the First World War includes the complete text of De bello germanico, his first, lively sketch of the war as he lived it in 1916. Deeply informed by his reading of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, and equally by his knowledge of the countryside, Blunden’s vivid prose summons up for us what was human and natural in that most unnatural of environments, the battlefields of the Western Front.
This selection of Blunden’s prose about the First World War includes the complete text of De bello germanico, his first, lively sketch of the war as he lived it in 1916. Deeply informed by his reading of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, and equally by his knowledge of the countryside, Blunden’s vivid prose summons up for us what was human and natural in that most unnatural of environments, the battlefields of the Western Front.
Edmund Blunden (1896–1974) grew up in Kent and went to school in Sussex at Christ’s Hospital; these were the formative landscapes of his boyhood. He joined the Royal Sussex Regiment in 1915, serving in France and Flanders. His collection The Shepherd (1922) made his reputation as a poet; his classic account of his military service, Undertones of War (1928) was written while he was teaching in Japan. He made his living by writing and editing, with two extended periods of teaching: as a Fellow of Merton College 1931–42, and as Professor of English at the University of Hong Kong 1953–64. He received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1956, and was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford 1966–68. His passions were poetry, book collecting, cricket, and the English countryside; he was haunted by his war experience all his life.
Robyn Marsack began her long association with Carcanet Press by editing the first edition of Edmund Blunden’s Selected Poems in 1982, and worked as a publishers’ editor until she became Director of the Scottish Poetry Library 2000–2016. She was a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Glasgow 2016–2018. She has co-edited several poetry anthologies, including OxfordPoets 2013 with Iain Galbraith, and has edited for Carcanet Blunden’s Fall In, Ghosts: selected war prose (2014) , a new edition of Blunden's Selected Poems (2018) and the volume of letters celebrating the 50th anniversary of Carcanet Press, Fifty Fifty (2019).