reilly 292
LC copy has dust jacket. . First Edition. pp 72, almost good as new in v.g. d/w, not price clipped

Vernon Scannell (23 January 1922 – 16 November 2007) was a British poet and author. He was at one time a professional boxer, and wrote novels about the sport.

1st Edition. This mint, unread, First English Edition hardback, Robson Books Ltd, London, 1989, has a mint, clipped dust jacket that is now protected in a clear acid-free slipcover. The cover is scarlet cloth with gilt lettering to the spine. The book size is 5.5" w x 8.75" h with 72 pages. ISBN 0 86051376 9. "Just as Kipling's BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS spoke for the Tommy Atkins of Queen Victoria's reign, so Vernon Scannell's remarkable new book-length sequence of poems, SOLDIERING ON, voices the often shocking, sometimes absurd and, on occasion even comic, aspects of military life in the ranks this century. Scannell has chosen forms and language that should effectively communicate with the least sophisticated of poetry readers without sacrificing anything of the craftsmanship, imaginative power and verbal energy for which he has long been admired. Whereas Kipling naturally could not use the actual language of the barrack room because of the linguistic taboos of the day, Scannell, in post-Chatterley climate, is free to do just that and he does so brilliantly, exploring the primitive myths, rituals, prejudices, sexual and ethical mores of the common British soldier in poems that are always entertaining, whether they are stirring, funny or as so often, profoundly moving. Vernon Scannell is one of the most accomplished, entertaining and widely read poets writing in Great Britain today. At the age of sixty-six, as a former war-time soldier, professional boxer and regular broadcaster on radio and TV, he calls upon an unusually wide range of experience for the subject matter of his poetry. This is his eleventh book of poems. His haunting and moving account of his wartime experiences IN ARGUMENT OF KINGS, published in 1987, received wide acclaim. Anthony Thwaite wrote in the Observer: 'It must have taken real courage to get it down like this. The skill is both literary and human, in a book which is full of terror, humour and truth.'.