"Severn and Somme" and "War's Embers"

Ivor Gurney's poetic career was unusual. It began in 1917 and 1919 with two small volumes of verse, "Severn and Somme" and "War's Embers". After that, though he planned further books, none appeared until Edmund Blunden's 1954 "Selected Poems". By then Gurney, who entered an asylum in 1922, had been dead for 17 years.

Carcanet, in association with MidNAG, has sought to recreate what would have been Gurney's poetic trajectory, issuing not only his "War Letters" and "Collected Letters", but the books he did publish, and those he would have published had he been able to do so. This volume includes his 1917 and 1919 books, while later volumes, rather than merely select from the mass of archive material, follow his changing instructions and present the oeuvre as he might have wished it.

Gurney's musical training – with Herbert Howells, under Stanford at the Royal College of Music – saw him writing songs and setting others' lyrics. He heard and read the Georgians. Then the War came and in 1916, as a private in the 2nd/5th Gloucesters, he began the service which more or less stopped his musical career. In 1917 he was gassed at Ypres and posted back to England. Within five years he had entered the Dartford mental hospital where he ended his days.