The short, unhappy life of Ivor Gurney — wounded, gassed and driven insane

The poet and composer Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) is a classic but nevertheless shocking example of literary neglect. Although he brought out two respectfully received collections of war poetry during his lifetime, the idiosyncrasies of his style have prevented him from being widely recognised as the equal of his greatest contemporaries. His history of mental illness has further destabilised the reception of his work, not just by encouraging people to think of him as crazy, but by compounding practical difficulties surrounding its publication. In the 1980s Michael Hurd wrote a somewhat sketchy biography, and P.J. Kavanagh edited an expanded, but still partial, sample of his work. Only now has Kate Kennedy, in her enthralling, meticulously researched and deeply sympathetic life, finally done justice to his story.

Gurney was the son of a tailor in Gloucester (no kidding), but began to strain against his shopkeeper inheritance the moment he became a chorister at the cathedral school.