[Wilfred Owen, war poet.] Printed ‘Order of Service for the dedication of a memorial to Wilfred Owen 1893-1918’. [with readers including Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, D. J. Enright, Jon Stallworthy, Jill Balcon]

A nice association with a man widely regarded as the greatest English poet of the First World War, and a scarce item of which not many copies can have been printed, and no other copy has been traced. 4pp, 8vo. Bifolium on laid paper. In fair condition, lightly aged, with slight creasing at head. Explanatory note on final page begins: ‘The memorial to Wilfred Owen is cut on Portland stone by Michael Harvey from lettering drawn by Reynolds Stone, CBE, RDI. / The graves of Tom and Susan Owen, the poet’s father and mother, and of his sister Mary are in the south-east corner of the churchyard. / Tea will be served by the ladies of the parish after the service at the old vicarage, now called The Glebe House, where Wilfred Owen lived from 20 October 1911 to 7 February 1913 while acting as lay assistant to the Rev. Herbert Wigan. A small display of books by and about Owen may be seen there.’ The two central pages give the order of service, beginning with the text of Catherine Winkworth’s translation of Rinkart’s ‘Now thank we all our God’. A list of the readings follows, with Owen’s biographer Jon Stallworthy speaking about ‘Wilfred Owen at Dunsden’, and Ian Parsons about ‘Wilfred Owen as Poet’. Letters by Owen to his mother (‘The Sentry’ and ‘The Send-Off’) are read by Stallworthy, the actress Jill Balcon, D. J. Enright and Peter Owen. The poets Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill and Robert Gittings read poems by Owen and extracts from letters. The memorial is dedicated by the Bishop of Oxford, and there is a ‘Bidding Prayer’ by Rev. Norman Print, Vicar of Dunsden.