DW's correspondence and subject files

Scope and Content

This series is comprised of alphabetical correspondence files and some subject files maintained by DW during this period. Many of the letters date from 1996 and relate to his work at that time on 'The posthumous life of Wilfred Owen', which he was encouraged to write by the poet's nephew, Peter Owen. The correspondence documents his progress with the book, including a research visit to consult the Blunden and Sassoon papers held at the Harry Ransom Center in Texas, his decision to focus initially on the central section of the book which dealt with the period when he was actively involved in the WO story, and his efforts to follow up particular lines of enquiry. There are also papers relating to a conference on literary biography he attended in 1995 to inform his work on this 'posthumous' literary life. His work on the abortive Dictionary of literary biography project on English poets of the Great War is also reflected here.

Significant correspondents represented in these files include: the literary scholar and historian David Daiches; WO scholar Dominic Hibberd; literary scholar John Haffenden; the publisher and writer Sir Rupert Hart-Davis; Barry Webb, the biographer of Edmund Blunden; Blunden's widow Claire; Peter Owen; and Siegfried Sassoon's son, George.

Arrangement

DW stored files /1-9 (which were obviously part of an alphabetical sequence) and /10-12 together in the order in which they are listed here; /13-16 were stored separately, but as they represent files put together by DW himself, they have been added to the end of the labelled sequence.

Related Material

Further letters from some of the correspondents in this series can be found in the following series (DSW/1/3/2) which contains DW's unsorted correspondence from this period.