Reviewed in the Mail On Sunday

The poets of the Second World War have not had the same impact as their forbears from the 1914-18 generation, but the name Keith Douglas deserves to be celebrated in the same breath as Owen and Sassoon. At the time of his death in Normandy in 1944, Douglas had published little, but his reputation since the war has continued to grow, helped by the advocacy of the late Ted Hughes. This collection of more than 300 letters gives a powerful impression of a passionate and vigorous talent cut off, like so many others, in its prime. Douglas had a premonition of his own death, and some of his letters are almost unbearably poignant.