The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney
The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney

Author: Michael Hurd

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2011-11-17

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0571281052

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First published in 1978 The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney is a moving and extraordinary account of a tragic genius penned by the composer Michael Hurd. Born in Gloucester in 1890 Ivor Gurney began writing songs and poems in his teens, taking his inspiration from the Severn Valley countryside where he grew up. Sent to the Western Front during the First World War Gurney experienced desolation and horror that made a profound impression on him. He ended his days in an asylum, but at his death in 1937 he was beginning to be acknowledged as one of England's finest composers. Still, it took several more decades for his work as a war poet to be fully appreciated. 'Hurd compresses into a taut, sympathetic outline the initial optimism and later torment of Gurney's ill-starred life... distinguished by its crisp use of poetic extracts.' PN Review

Ordeal of Ivor Gurney
Ordeal of Ivor Gurney

Author: Michael Hurd

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2008-05

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9780571242016

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First published in 1978 The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney is a moving and extraordinary account of a tragic genius penned by the composer Michael Hurd. Born in Gloucester in 1890 Ivor Gurney began writing songs and poems in his teens, taking his inspiration from the Severn Valley countryside where he grew up. Sent to the Western Front during the First World War Gurney experienced desolation and horror that made a profound impression on him. He ended his days in an asylum, but at his death in 1937 he was beginning to be acknowledged as one of England's finest composers. Still, it took several more decades for his work as a war poet to be fully appreciated. 'Hurd compresses into a taut, sympathetic outline the initial optimism and later torment of Gurney's ill-starred life... distinguished by its crisp use of poetic extracts.' PN Review

Dweller in Shadows
Dweller in Shadows

Author: Kate Kennedy

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-07-13

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 0691212783

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"Originally a student of music, [Gurney] took up poetry in the trenches of the First World War, and was working on what would be his first volume of verse when, in 1917, he suffered wounds to the shoulder; and it was just before publication of this volume, Severn & Somme, that he was gassed at Passchendaele. After his return to Britain he resumed his musical studies, ... and quickly found outlets for his compositions. There is some debate about whether or not his subsequent mental illness was a consequence of the horrors and sufferings of the war; but mental illness marked the rest of his life, and indeed from about 1922 until his death he was institutionalised ... He nevertheless continued to produce poems and musical compositions in prolific fashion, and his works in both areas are read and performed, respectively, to this day"--

Ivor Gurney
Ivor Gurney

Author: John Lucas

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 0746308876

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Drawing on biographical information, letters, reminiscences and anecdotes, John Lucas pieces together the troubled life of Ivor Gurney, a key 20th century poet.

Ivor Gurney & Marion Scott
Ivor Gurney & Marion Scott

Author: Pamela Blevins

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1843834219

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Insightful account of the life and works of two of the most important figures in twentieth-century British cultural life.

Best Poems
Best Poems

Author: Ivor Gurney

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

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Best Poems consists of fair copies Gurney made, with few alterations. The Book of Five Makings is more a working draft, with recastings of the same poems, revealing the process by which he brought his art to completion. Of the 116 poems in this double volume, fewer than a quarter are previously collected. In his introduction R.K.R. Thornton, Professor of English at the University of Birmingham and editor of Gurney's poems and collected letters, sets the books in context. Annotations give readers a clear picture of the books as Gurney wanted them to be.

Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War
Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War

Author: Peter Barham

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 9780300125115

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This is a poignant, sometimes ribald, history of the rank-and-file servicemen who were psychiatric casualties of World War One.

In Zodiac Light
In Zodiac Light

Author: Robert Edric

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0552774189

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It is December 1922. Ex-soldier, poet and composer, Ivor Gurney, suffering from increasingly frequent and deepening bouts of paranoid schizophrenia is transferred to the City of London Mental Hospital, Dartford. Neglected by the military and his own family, and abandoned by all but a notable handful of his friends, Gurney begins a descent into the madness and oblivion which he believes has long been waiting to claim him. Yet following his arrival at Dartford, there are still those who continue to believe in Gurney’s capabilities. It seems that he might find some calm and ease in his life, and thus achieve the status so many consider him capable of achieving..

The Routledge History of Literature in English
The Routledge History of Literature in English

Author: Ronald Carter

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 598

ISBN-13: 9780415243179

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This is a guide to the main developments in the history of British and Irish literature, charting some of the main features of literary language development and highlighting key language topics.