Air Force Poetry
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: 1st ed.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Yellowed
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Dj - chipped and worn with some loss price clipped. Binding slightly shaky - no loose pages. Clean text.
In the darkest hours of the Second World War, the skies above Britain and Europe became the unlikely birthplace of some of the most arresting verse of the twentieth century — Air Force Poetry is the remarkable testament to that creative defiance. Edited by John Pudney and Henry Treece, two of wartime Britain's most respected literary voices, this anthology gathers the poems of men who flew, fought, and fell, transforming the roar of engines and the silence of altitude into language of raw, unflinching beauty. The collection chronicles the inner lives of RAF airmen — their courage, camaraderie, fear, and fleeting joy — rendered in verse that refuses to sentimentalise the realities of aerial combat. Beyond its historical significance as a wartime document, this anthology stands as a landmark in British war literature, presenting a chorus of voices that range from the quietly elegiac to the starkly modernist. Pudney, celebrated for his iconic poem For Johnny, and Treece, a leading figure of the New Apocalypse movement, brought both curatorial rigour and poetic authority to the selection, ensuring that each poem resonates with authenticity and artistic merit. Published by the distinguished house of John Lane The Bodley Head, this is a collection that reminds us that even in humanity's most mechanised conflicts, the lyric impulse endures — and asks whether any elegy has ever been more urgently needed.
Author: John Pudney And Henry Treece
Format: Hardback
Published: 1944, John Lane The Bodley Head
Genre: Poetry
Edition: 1st ed.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Yellowed
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Dj - chipped and worn with some loss price clipped. Binding slightly shaky - no loose pages. Clean text.
In the darkest hours of the Second World War, the skies above Britain and Europe became the unlikely birthplace of some of the most arresting verse of the twentieth century — Air Force Poetry is the remarkable testament to that creative defiance. Edited by John Pudney and Henry Treece, two of wartime Britain's most respected literary voices, this anthology gathers the poems of men who flew, fought, and fell, transforming the roar of engines and the silence of altitude into language of raw, unflinching beauty. The collection chronicles the inner lives of RAF airmen — their courage, camaraderie, fear, and fleeting joy — rendered in verse that refuses to sentimentalise the realities of aerial combat. Beyond its historical significance as a wartime document, this anthology stands as a landmark in British war literature, presenting a chorus of voices that range from the quietly elegiac to the starkly modernist. Pudney, celebrated for his iconic poem For Johnny, and Treece, a leading figure of the New Apocalypse movement, brought both curatorial rigour and poetic authority to the selection, ensuring that each poem resonates with authenticity and artistic merit. Published by the distinguished house of John Lane The Bodley Head, this is a collection that reminds us that even in humanity's most mechanised conflicts, the lyric impulse endures — and asks whether any elegy has ever been more urgently needed.