Since its original publication over forty years ago, Brian Gardner's Up the Line to Death has established itself as a classic anthology of the poetry of the First World WarThe famous - Kipling, Brooke, Sassoon, Blunden, Owen, Graves - are all here, as well as others almost entirely forgotten now. Seventy-two poets are included; twenty-one of them died in action. From the early exultation to the bitter disillusion, the tragedy of the First World War is precisely traced in the words of those who lived through it.
'To read through this anthology is ... to live the years 1914-1918, adding to the images of battle which most of us have already, the actual feelings expressed by the soldier poets who lived, and died, through trench warfare' Times Education Supplement
'It is all here, the mud and rats of the trenches, the hellish noise of the bombardment, the insane waste of life, the high heroism and the bitter cynicism' Illustrated London News
'Mr Gardner, who has chosen, introduced and put notes to this admirable anthology, shows the First World War poets in all moods' The Times
'Mr Gardner steers his course... with skill and discrimination' Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times