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In 1998, Eric Ratcliffe via Astrapost Press, books
now under the umbrella of The Four Quarters Press,
brought out the first long descriptive poem on the
campaigns and career of the Iron Duke. This was no
ordinary poem romanticising war, but 108 pages of
descriptive poetry in the body of a book containing
33 pages of notes on the events described in the
lines, added to which were 3 appendixes, a
bibliography and six pages of a 2-column
alphabetical index. It was, as he explained, a "broad
front" in literature and "introduces the concept of the
annotated historical narrative poem as a reference
point in its own right, needing the same classification
accorded to a prose work, provided that the poetry
describes and does not over-ornament.

Most of the 1998 edition in a silver cover was lost in
a depot liquidation, and 6 years later it was reprinted
in faith that it needed the recognition as a new
concept in "long distance" poetry as genuine
reference material. Perhaps inevitably the poetry
suffers in the interests of reportage, but the book is a
landmark for the poem used in this way.