Undertones of War

A beautifully illustrated edition of Edmund Blunden's rich prose memoir. John Greening couples the original and unrevised version of the text with the best of Blunden's own annotations, commentaries, and illustrations. "Edmund Blunden (1896-1974) was one of the youngest of the war poets, enlisting straight from school to find himself in some of the Western Front's most notorious hot-spots. His prose memoir, written in a rich, allusive vein, full of anecdote and human interest, is unique for its quiet authority and for the potency of its dream-like narrative. Once we accept the archaic conventions and catch the tone -- which can be by turns horrifying or hilarious -- Undertones of War gradually reveals itself as a masterpiece. It is clear why it has remained in print since it first appeared in 1928. This new edition not only offers the original unrevised version of the prose narrative, written at white heat when Blunden was teaching in Japan and had no access to his notes, but provides a great deal of supplementary material never before gathered together. Blunden's 'Preliminary' expresses the lifelong compulsion he felt 'to go over the ground again' and for half a century he prepare