The Library is delighted to be providing the venue for a forthcoming talk by Dr Guy Cuthbertson of Liverpool Hope University, whose biography of the war poet Wilfred Owen was published to high critical acclaim last year.
Dr Cuthbertson will explore Wilfred Owen’s North in order to discuss both the man and his work. Owen knew Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Lakes and Scotland, spending several years in Birkenhead, and serving – and dying – in the Manchester Regiment. But is he a Northern poet? The talk will address questions of class, education, accent, geography, literary taste and a North-South divide.
The event, organised by Nicholas Haslam in conjunction with the Library, is taking place at 6.30pm on Thursday 22 October at the John Rylands Library on Deansgate. Entry is free and there is no need to book.
After Dr Cuthbertson’s talk, there will be an opportunity to view some of the archive material which he used in his research for the book. The Papers of Dennis Welland (an early pioneer of Wilfred Owen studies) are held at the Library and include such gems as Welland’s thesis on Owen which has annotations by Siegfried Sassoon, poems by Owen which were transcribed by Edmund Blunden, extensive unpublished correspondence, and some rare photographs of Owen like the one reproduced on the poster below.
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