Highlights of the First World War Poetry Digital Archive: The Complete Poetry Manuscripts of Wilfred Owen

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The Complete Poetry Manuscripts of Wilfred Owen

The archive contains the complete collection of Wilfred Owen's poetry manuscripts. The majority of Owen's poems were not published in his lifetime, thus editors like Edmund Blunden and Jon Stallworthy had to work with his manuscripts to formulate final versions.

Here you can see the four versions of Owen's poem 'Dulce et Decorum Est', complete with edits and crossings out as he worked on its composition between October 1917 and March 1918. He worked on the poem whilst he was at Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Scotland. It was here that he met Siegfried Sassoon, who would have an important influence on his work.