Understand the Weapon, Understand the Wound

*2016 is the 80th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War*Ideal reading material for those studying Spanish Civil War, war poetry, politics or military history*Cornford was a committed communist killed whilst fighting the fascist side during the Spanish Civil War; he documented his experiences through poetry, prose, and letters, all included in this edition.*Includes note from Jane Bernal, daughter of Margot Heinemann, Cornford's lover

Poems and letters about love, war and suffering from anti-fascist Byronic figure, killed during battle in 1936Understand the weapon, understand the wound:What shapeless past was hammered to action by his deeds,Only in constant action was his constant certainty found.He will throw a longer shadow as time recedes.from 'Sergei Mironovitch Kirov'John Cornford (1915-1936) has long been held in high estimation as the outstanding English writer who fell to the Fascists in Spain. This collection of writings from Cornford's thirteenth to his twenty-first year, when he died of wounds received in action, is a revealing autobiography, showing the sources of his political and literary commitments. In this authoritative survey of Cornford's poems, essays and letters, Jonathan Galassi gives access to material not available elsewhere; his introduction and notes, together with two new afterwords by Jane Bernal and Richard Baxell, situate the work in its political and personal contexts. As Galassi suggests in his introduction, the republication of Cornford's writings eighty years after his death 'celebrates the gem-like intensity of one young man's prodigious desire and need to change the world.'