Dr Dominic Hibberd, a biographer of the poet Wilfred Owen, has died at his west Oxfordshire home, aged 70.

Dr Hibberd was a world authority on Wilfred Owen and is credited with writing the definitive biography of the First World War poet, who was killed in action in northern France on November 4, 1918, just a week before the armistice which ended the conflict.

Educated at Rugby and King’s College, Cambridge, Dr Hibberd went on to teach at Manchester Grammar School and Keele and Exeter universities as well as universities in the US and China.

After his academic career he moved to Oxford and later to Kingham, near Chipping Norton, becoming a full-time author. Beginning in 1986 with Owen the Poet, he published a series of books, ranging from Diary of a Dead Officer, a study of the Oxford-educated poet Arthur Graeme West.

His key works were both about Owen, the first being Wilfred Owen: The Last Year, which was published in 1992 and was followed in 2002 by Wilfred Owen: A New Biography.

He spent more than quarter of a century researching every aspect of the poet’s life and uncovered many little-known facts.

He also wrote a biography of the New Age poet Harold Monro in 2001, and edited The Winter of the World: Poems of the First World War in 2007, with John Onions.

In 2010 Dr Hibberd was diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative disease. Last year, when he was already very ill, he received a Doctor of Letters from Cambridge University.

He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

He was cared for until the end by his close friend Tom Coulthard and died at home on August 12.

Friends described Dr Hibberd as a quiet and courteous man, who accepted his illness with great courage. In accordance with Dr Hibberd’s wishes, there was no funeral but a private cremation took place.