An exhibition was held at the English Faculty Library, Thursday 3 April – Friday 4 April 2014, in conjunction with the British World War One Poetry Spring School at the Faculty of English Language & Literature, University of Oxford.
The small exhibition featured material from the EFL’s Wilfred Owen archive. Photographs of the items in the display can be found on this article.
The child (left) holding the toy boat made for him by his father grew up to be Wilfred Owen, one of the best-known poets of the First World War.
Dulce et Decorum Est was written in October 1917, at which point Wilfred had spent several months at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh being treated for shell shock.
© The English Faculty Library, University of Oxford / The Wilfred Owen Literary Estate. This item is from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford
While at Craiglockhart, he edited the hospital magazine, The Hydra.
© English Faculty Library, The University of Oxford This item is from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford
Most crucially, though, it was there that Wilfred met Siegfried Sassoon, who encouraged his development as a poet. Sassoon’s inscribed copy of his The Old Huntsman is one of the volumes in Wilfred’s personal library, which was housed at the EFL, still arranged as it was at his death in 1918.
The last photograph taken of Wilfred Owen.
© The English Faculty Library, University of Oxford / The Wilfred Owen Literary Estate
This item is from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford
Sassoon wrote to Susan Owen in October 1919 to say, “As you know, I did all I could to encourage Wilfred in his work, and I am sure that he was very fond of me. His death was a great loss, not only to his friends but to literature, & I believe that his war poems will have a genuine success”.
In August 1918, Wilfred was ordered back to France where he was killed on November 4th on the bank of the Oise-Sambre Canal near Ors. His Poems (with an introduction by Sassoon) was published in 1920, and other editions followed including the 1931 edition by Edmund Blunden – the frontispiece of this edition is the last photograph of Wilfred, taken in Hastings on 30th August 1918
English Faculity Library is no longer able to house the collection, which was moved to the Weston Library in January 2016. A summary of its scope and content is available online. For access or if you have any queries, please contact the Weston Library on specialcollections.enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk