Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) - photo 1
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) - photo 2

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Lot 265
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 3 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 470255
Lot 265 | Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Estimate value
£ 3 000 – 5 000
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Poems. 1920

OWEN, Wilfred (1893-1918). Poems. Introduction by Siegfried Sassoon. London: Chatto & Windus, 1920.



First edition of perhaps the finest book of poems to emerge from the war period, in the rare dustjacket. Owen was killed in action, aged 25, a week before the Armistice of 1918, having published only five poems. In his ‘Preface’, the author states: ‘Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry. / The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. / The Poetry is in the pity.’ Siegfried Sassoon, whom Owen had idolized, writes in his introduction to the volume: ‘in the last year of Owen's life he attained a clear vision of what he needed to say, and these poems survive him as his true and splendid testament'. They include some of the best-known poems of the period, such as his ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ and ‘Dulce et Decorum est’. Keynes B2.



Quarto (213 x 170mm). Frontispiece sepia photograph of the author in uniform (tissue guard discoloured with some offsetting to title, light spotting and offsetting to frontispiece). Original crimson cloth-covered boards, printer paper spine label; original printed dustjacket (cloth lightly marked and cockled at upper board, dustjacket a little soiled and darkened, a few chips including to spine ends affecting some letters, backed onto reinforcement paper).

Place of origin:Northern Europe
Auction house category:Books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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09.12.2020 – 09.12.2020
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