Identity area
Reference code
CA OTUTF MS COLL 00372
Title
Yuan Collection of Edmund Blunden Papers
Date(s)
- 1951-1999 (Creation)
Level of description
Manuscript Collection
Extent and medium
2 boxes and oversize folder
Context area
Name of creator
(1896-1974)
Biographical history
Edmund Blunden was born in London, England, in 1896. Educated at Christ's Hospital and Queen's College, Oxford, he joined the Royal Sussex Regiment on the outbreak of the First World War. During the war, Blunden fought at Ypres and the Somme and won the Military Cross for bravery. Blunden wrote about these experiences in Undertones of War (1928). He also produced collected editions of the work of the war poets Wilfred Owen (1931) and Ivor Gurney (1954). He held several academic posts, including professor of English literature at Tokyo University, University of Hong Kong and Oxford University. He wrote books on Leigh Hunt, Thomas Hardy, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Charles Lamb. He also published several volumes of poetry: Pastorals (1916), The Waggoner (1920), The Shepherd (1922), English Poems (1925), Poems: 1930-40 (1941) and After the Bombing (1950). He died in 1974.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Gift of Sheila Yuan.
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The collection consists of holograph typescript manuscripts of Blunden's lecture notes, essays, speeches, addresses and poems, as well as correspondence with Sheila Yuan, who was Blunden's secretary in the Deptartment of English at the University of Hong Kong in the 1950s.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Material may be requested in person at the Fisher Library Reference Desk, or in advance using our online stack retrieval request form: https://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/stack-retrieval-request
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- English