Edmund Blunden

Who was Edmund Blunden?

Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. He ended his career as Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. Born in London, Blunden was the eldest of the nine children of Charles Edmund Blunden (1871–1951) and his wife, Georgina Margaret née Tyler, who were joint-headteachers of Yalding school. Blunden was educated at Christ's Hospital and The Queen's College, Oxford. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was also a reviewer for English publications and an academic in Tokyo and later Hong Kong. In September 1915, over a year after the outbreak of World War I, Blunden was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant into the British Army's Royal Sussex Regiment.

He was posted to the 11th (Service) Battalion (1st South Down), Royal Sussex Regiment, a Kitchener's Army unit that formed part of the 116th Brigade of the 39th Division in May 1916, two months after the battalion's arrival in France.

Historical significance

He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature six times.