The story begins with Owen's return from the Front as a shellshock case in June 1917. His movements are traced from the Craiglockhart War hospital in Edinburgh, to Scarborough where he was on light duties during the winter of 1917-1918 and finally to France, where he took part in the "March to Victory" and some of the most intense fighting of the war. The book is illustrated with facsimilies of Owen's manuscripts; letters to him from Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Charles Scott Moncrief; and old and new photographs of the places where he lived and fought.