Other Men's Flowers: An Anthology of Poetry

Description

An anthology of life-affirming poetry, selected and introduced by Lord Wavell. First published in 1944, during the darkest days of the war, Lord Wavell's great anthology of English poetry - enhanced by his own introduction and annotations - encouraged and delighted many thousands of readers. It has remained in print every since, proving beyond doubt that, whatever the fashion of the day, poetry can fulfil its ancient function, finding its way to the hearts of the many, not only to the minds of the few.

Field-Marshal Lord Wavell (1883-1950), educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst, was wounded at Ypres in the First World War and lost the sight of one eye. A professional soldier, he became known as an officer untrammeled by convention and as an exceptional trainer of troops. In 1939 he was given the Middle East Command and soon found himself fighting eight separate campaigns. His defeat of a numerically superior Italian army, with the capture of 130,000 prisoners, was as remarkable as his adroit conquest of Abyssinia. He was Viceroy of India from 1943 to 1947, and in the last years of his life in London he became president of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Kipling, Browning, Poetry and Virgil Societies.

The worth of Other Men's Flowers is that it is not a manufactured article, made for the market, but the harvest of a life's devotion - of things long held precious in the memory * Daily Telegraph * It is a vindication of the role poetry can fulfil as a source of inspiration and encouragement * Glasgow Herald * Generals tend to win their reputations at the cost of other men's lives. By an anomaly unique in military history Wavell's own reputation has reached its widest range - certainly in the English-speaking world - not because of his prowess as a soldier or a proconsul, but because of his identification with a small miscellany containing a selection of other men's verses * Ronald Lewin *