Durham School has long been proud of its two poets of the First World War, William Noel Hodgson (1893-1916) and Nowell Oxland (1890-1915), who attended school together as close friends before going on to be killed in the line duty. Both of their names are commemorated in the Chapel, and the 2014 book on the history of Durham School in both World Wars, We Shall Not Go Forth Again, featured the work of both authors. Hodgson is the more famous of the pair, with his poetry frequently anthologised and at least two excellent biographies—Jack Medomsley's The Gentle Poet (1989) and Charlotte Zeepvat's Before Action (2014)—being written about him. Hodgson's Verse & Prose in Peace & War (1917) was published by John Murray of London and ran to three editions, while Oxland's Poems and Stories was only privately published, with few copies still in existence. Both of these facts have now changed, however, with the publication of Stephen Cooper and Zoe Gilbert's Chasing the Phantom: The Lost Words of War Poet Nowell Oxland, which was released last month. 

The book represents the first dedicated republishing of Nowell Oxland's short stories and poetry since his posthumously and privately circulated 1917 collection, and also includes an article on his wartime career and the efforts to trace Oxland's literary executor Amy Hawthorn. Stephen Cooper's article, entitled A Green Hill Far Away, explores Nowell Oxland's life and wartime career. Cooper examines how Oxland, who had higher certificates in Latin and Divinity at Durham School and would go on to take third class honours in Classical Moderations at Oxford, would have seen the world through the medium of Greek and Latin poetry. His voyage out to Gallipolli is compared to that of Odysseus, who also sailed on the same Aegean Sea, while in his poem 'Farewell' he evokes the "the host of Menelaus", who were bound for the Hellespont after a similarly mythical goal.

New for this book is Zoe Gilbert's article 'Chasing Amy', which describes her search for Nowell Oxland's friend Amy Hawthorn, who for a long time was a mere footnote in his story. This is partly a historical essay and partly a piece of literary psychogeography. Hawthorn and Oxland were close platonic friends, although they made an odd pair- her a 35-year-old teacher, him a 20-year-old rugby player. It was Amy Hawthorn, however, who took Oxland's poems and stories—for which he was shy and dismissive of, with likely only two or three people actually knowing he wrote—and published them after his death. In a letter dated the 27th December 1915 she wrote "I believe I was the only one who saw all his work and believed in his powers; he gave me leave to publish anything I liked that he wrote after leaving England." It is thanks to her that his work survives. Zoe Gilbert's piece traces her from New Bridge Street in Newcastle to Alston Moor in the Highlands, providing a touching picture of, as it were, the woman behind the man.

The title of the book, Chasing the Phantom, comes from the final story of Oxland's collection, 'The Long'. In it, Oxland recounts walking the gardens at Oxford and encountering a group of old Worcester College alumni. There for a reunion, Oxland describes their longing for their own college youth, with the tragic knowledge that they will never be able to recapture it. "And so they chased the phantom until it seemed almost within their grasp." Oxland, of course, would not grow old enough to attend any university reunions. Gilbert and Cooper, however, are chasing their own Phantoms; not just Oxland, whose skill at writing show a talent cut down in his prime, but the more ephemeral and hidden figure of Amy Hawthorn, who undertook the first print run of Poems & Stories.

With its examination of the lost poems and stories of one of Durham School's finest wartime poets, the book is of great interest to anyone interested in the school's history. It is available commercially through Thorn & Haw Publications, as well as bookshops throughout Nowell Oxland's native Cumbria. with all proceeds going to a charity for Oxland's native Alston. The book is also available through Amazon