In 1992 the Spark invited Martin Stannard to write her biography, offering interviews and full access to her papers. The result is this biography of the Scottish author.

"Definitive. . . . Deeply researched and pondered." "A literary biography of the same caliber as Richard Ellmann's James Joyce." These words of praise from Edmund Morris in the New York Times and Michael Dirda in the Washington Post are but some of the acclaim that greeted Martin Stannard's Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903-1939. This eagerly awaited second volume, spanning the years from World War II to Waugh's death in 1966, completes the portrait of one of the foremost writers of the century. This was the period of some of Waugh's greatest work, including Brideshead Revisited, The Loved One, and the Sword of Honour trilogy.

Poetics. Reviews. Opinionated, witty and outspoken, Martin Stannard's collected reviews are sure to amuse, delight, and infuriate all who care about contemporary poetry. For, as he says: If these books 'deserve' a more thorough scrutiny, I'm sure someone somewhere will give it them. The poetry world is full of boring people, sycophants and champions of the dull, after all. The remarkable thing is that now, when poetry is allegedly much brighter and more popular than it's been for, ooh, for ages; when it's on Radio One; when there's a 'new poetry' and a new generation of poets, when it seems we're being told that the barbarians in British poetry have well and truly stormed the crusty city...all that -- the remarkable thing is, that much of this 'new' poetry isn't actually all that different in essence, or in character, from what went before.

Set just before the Great War it depicts the tragic life of the good soldier; one Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers. It is told in non-sequential flashbacks that gradually reveal a story quite different to that proffered at the beginning.

A collection of poetry from Martin Stannard. His previous collections include 'Denying England' and The Flat of the Land'.