Poetry of the World Wars

About the Book

The Great War of 1914-18 and the Second World War of 1939-45, told in the words of some of the most immediate and moving poetry in the language – a tribute to the triumph of the human spirit over the desolation and waste of war.

This collection includes many of the most famous works by the leading war poets, but also lesser-known verse by soldier (and sailor and airman) poets, as well as those by civilians.

Featuring works by Sassoon, Owen, Rosenberg, Edward Thomas, Sidney Keyes and others – and those less well known for such verse, among them Hardy, Kipling, Chesterton, D. H. Lawrence, Housman and Ezra Pound.

This wide-ranging anthology presents a portrait of a nation and its allies engaged in the greatest catastrophes in human history. From the hellish visions and overwhelming grief of early writers, to the more private and personal reflections of the poets of the Second World War, this collection is a eulogy to them all.