Product Description

18th March 1993 is the centenary of Wilfred Owen's birth. To mark the Event Chatto is reissuing the definitive single-volume edition of Owen's famous war poems, complied by Jon Stallworthy from his scholarly 2-volume edition. It has sold over 40, 000 copies, first under the Hogarth imprint, and then under Chatto.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78263 in Books
• Published on: 1990-08-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From the Publisher
A handsome edition of Owen's poems to mark the centenary of his birth.

About the Author
Jon Stallworthy, born in 1935, is Professor of English at the University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow of Wolfson College, a poet, and literary critic. His works include seven volumes of poetry, and biographies of Wilfred Owen and Louis MacNeice. He has edited several anthologies and is particularly known for his work on war poetry.

Customer Reviews

Five stars for the poems, but zero for the publisher
I have nothing useful to add to the appreciation of Wilfred Owen's masterpieces, simply the finest war poetry ever.
However, as a warning to potential puchasers, this reprint edition does not do the content justice.
Unless by some grim humour the publishers intend to add to the War's toll by leaving their own "widows" (a single line of type, that ends a paragraph, carried over to the next page or column) and "orphans" (a single line of type, beginning a paragraph, at the bottom of a column or page). These abound.
There is no lay-out to speak of, the whole text, from preface to last line, has been simply printed out and cut, with no regard for meaning.
Readers can do better with the free text available on the web and a basic home printer!
Unworthy of such an immense poet.

Harrowing and beautiful World War One Poems
In his preface Wilfred Owen hopes that the spirit of his work may survive after the names and places of the Great War are forgotten. When one reads his haunting poems on the horrors and reality of World War One, horrors which those back in England often were not fully aware of until Owen contributed to their exposure, one must feel that the spirit of them is very much still alive. Amidst the carnage death must have become commonplace, but Owen still managed to imbue all of his accounts with a suitably elegaic tone that makes this collection one of the saddest and, at the same time most life-affirming books which I have read in a long time. I would commend it as essential to anyone with an interest in World War One, or simply in the precious and fragile nature of life.

'no greater love'
Wilford Owen was a poet of vast immense talent, a talent that really came to the fore during his experiences on the western front. Whilst he is by no means ignored, his work sadly tends to be underrated due to his continual placing besides Siegfried Sassoon. Although Sassoon was undoubtedly a great poet, he doesn't quite compare to Owen's ability to affect the reader at the deepest and most profound levels.
'Dulce et decorum est' is quite simply the greatest poem ever written in the English language and it is nigh on impossible not to be moved to tears upon first reading. 'No greater love' is incredibly harrowing with its description of a soldier torn apart by enemy fire yet manages to convey a sense of poetic beauty in said soldiers sacrifice that avoids any triteness. 'The parable of the old man and the young' uses a simple biblical allegory to devestating affect and is yet again a perfect example of Owen's talent to affect the reader on such a deep level.
Remarkable too is that his poetry is extremely accessable yet in being so loses none of its ability to say so much. He can not be recommended highly enough