Before Action: William Noel Hodgson and the 9th Devons. A Story of the Great War

Hodgson was one of the great war poets but his memory has faded, as contrasted with the likes of Sassoon and Owen. Nevertheless, at one time his poetry was considered their equal. This book is about his life, most of it about the period of the war he spent with the regiment, and in that respect the book is as much a regimental history as a biography, indeed, it is more or less written as such. But the 9th Devons survived The Somme, Hodgson did not, so this book is catalogued in Biographies.