What happened on the last day of the Great War? Each year since we have marked the end of the war with tributes and remembrance, solemnity and respect. But as Peace at Last reveals, the first Armistice Day in 1918 was entirely unprecedented and extraordinary. Upon hearing the news of the peace, crowds of people took to the streets, scaled statues, burnt effigies on bonfires and ran riot as joy and relief swept through the British population and the wider world. Drawing on news reports, literature, memoirs and letters, Cuthbertson brings to the fore the full strangeness of the day - its celebratory, wild atmosphere - and the experiences of ordinary people as well as soldiers and prominent figures like D. H. Lawrence, Robert Graves and David Lloyd George. Cuthbertson takes us from midnight to midnight - from when the Armistice was signed to the removing of black paint from streetlamps, flooding cities with light. Peace at Last is the compelling portrait of one of the most important days in history - an exciting and inspiring moment which has, until now, remained relatively unknown.

One of Britain's best-known and most loved poets, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) was killed at age 25 on one of the last days of the First World War, having acted heroically as soldier and officer despite his famous misgivings about the war's rationale and conduct. He left behind a body of poetry that sensitively captured the pity, rage, valor, and futility of the conflict. In this new biography Guy Cuthbertson provides a fresh account of Owen's life and formative influences: the lower-middle-class childhood that he tried to escape; the places he lived in, from Birkenhead to Bordeaux; his class anxieties and his religious doubts; his sexuality and friendships; his close relationship with his mother and his childlike personality. Cuthbertson chronicles a great poet's growth to poetic maturity, illuminates the social strata of the extraordinary Edwardian era, and adds rich context to how Owen's enduring verse can be understood.

'The one hundred and forty poems he wrote in the last two years of his life are a miracle. I can think of no body of work in English that is more mysterious.' - Michael Longley. When Edward Thomas died in the First World War, very few of his poems had been published, but he is now recognised as one of the finest and most influential poets of the last century. Although often referred to as 'a poet's poet', his writing has an almost universal appeal. He wrote accessibly, on traditional themes - the natural world, human relationships, transience and mortality. And yet his poetry is alive with the critical intelligence that came from years of writing non-fiction and reviewing verse. "Branch-Lines" captures the range of Thomas' achievement, not least by combining poetry with prose. In this unique collection, fifty-five contemporary poets reflect on Thomas' craftsmanship and enduring power. Some have chosen poems of their own in which they detect his influence, others have written new poems in his honour. Each poet has also contributed a piece of prose, and the volume contains an introduction, four critical essays, illustrations, a foreword by Andrew Motion and an afterword by Michael Longley. "Branch-Lines" offers a fascinating perspective on the workings of literary influence, with personal insights from some of the leading poet-critics of our time. 'The collection has a double value. It is a celebration of Thomas, and dignified tribute to his achievement; at the same time it bears witness to his powers of regeneration' - Andrew Motion. 'I read Thomas' collected poems at a sitting, poem by poem, all the way through and felt as I had not felt since reading Lawrence and Graves ten years before: I love this man, I can learn from him.' - David Constantine. 'I have always loved Edward Thomas' poetry' - Geoffrey Hill. 'He comes naturally, I think, to writers in English, like grass growing.' - U. A. Fanthorpe. 'When I started to try and write poetry and prose, a very uncertain beginning, it would have been even more uncertain if I hadn't read Thomas' poetry in my teens.' - Tom Paulin.