Undertones Of War

In one of the finest autobiographies to come out of the First World War, the acclaimed poet Edmund Blunden records his devastating e xperiences in France and Flanders. Enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the disastrous battles of the Somme, Ypres and Pa sschendale, describing the latter as `murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes`. In his compassionate ye t unsentimental prose, he tells of the endurance, heroism - and despair - among the men of his battalion.

• author: Edmund Blunden