I've been reading Basil Bunting's poems alongside this work and I'm convinced he's one of the most important British poets of the past century, outshining such English Establishment figures as Auden or Larkin.

This detailed biography does justice to the poetry and to Bunting's diverse and interesting life. He was a conscientious objector to the First World War and spent a couple of years in prison because of it, a companion to Ezra Pound in Rapallo, a Wing Commander in the Second World War, a diplomat and reporter. He spent the 1950's in obscurity in Northumbria, then wrote and published his masterpiece "Briggflats" in the early 1960s and became, for a while, as famous as a poet can hope to be.

The book is always engaging and it's clear that Burton likes his subject. The excerpts from Bunting's letters with amusing descriptions of life in post-war Persia (Iran) are priceless. ( )