Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man

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The first book in English war poet and author Siegfried Sassoon's fictionalized autobiographical 'Sherston Trilogy.

Signed on the limitation page by Sassoon and Nicholson and numbered 152 out of only 300 copies issued. He refuses to drink her tea and sits in moody silence – and eventually realises his attitude to the dear old woman is "odious". It's tempting, then, to regard Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man as an attempt to put things back together, to reclaim youth and vigour (Sassoon was in his 40s when he wrote it), to help a lost world live again (not to mention the men killed by war) and to fight the tide of modernism. He remembers a period in the early days when he could still feel that…”the War was inevitable and justifiable. Funny because Sassoon wants it to be, not because he is lapsing, DH Lawrence-style, into absurd nature-fetishism.Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), one of the major First World-War poets, was exceptionally courageous on several occasions and in consequence was decorated for his bravery. Quite clean interior with 296 untrimmed pages; and illustrated by William Nicholson with 7 black and white plates of which most have a rather frayed tissue guard, and further drawings in the text.

All this, for the establishment, made Sassoon’s later outspoken opposition to the war all the more difficult to handle because he couldn’t be branded a coward. This is probably especially the case given the book’s semi-autobiographical nature and Sassoon’s place as one of the premier War Poets of the day, not to mention his position as a famous agitator for peace while still a soldier (of course we must always keep in mind that there is not a one-to-one correlation of Sherston to Sassoon regardless of the shared experiences they may have had). This is the first of Siegfried Sassoon’s trilogy relating to the First World War; part of my reading for the anniversary this year.So much went wrong in those early months, chiefly through an inexperienced military, and the bungling and the old ways being inadequate are very honestly portrayed here. It is a depiction of his early years presented in the form of an autobiographical novel, with false names being given to the central characters, including Sassoon himself, who appears as "George Sherston". His writing is crisp and tinged by nostalgia, the humor is subtle and he paints beautiful pictures of a world about be be torn apart by war and the modernity of the 20th century. After time on leave, on the 18th of May, 1916 he received word that David Thomas had died of a bullet to the throat.

Nellie Burton met Siegfried Sassoon through Robbie Ross, and had formerly been Ross's mother's maid. Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) was a poet and novelist whose novels include the James Tait Black Award-winning Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man . And the measured judgements of this cheerful innocent are much more powerful than any number of angry denunciations from other quarters. He is recognized as one of the great poets of World War I and one of the war's most influential opponents. The book’s greatest pleasures lie in Sassoon’s evocation of the English countryside, where he spent his “queer and not altogether happy” childhood living with his aunt.Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Nice clean yellow boards with black lettering, the boards not bowing, very clean rough-cut pages as issued with minimal flecking on the front block, very clean endpapers, in an unusually nice dustjacket, no tears or marks, fractionally paled lettering to the spine, with the inner glassine wrapper present. All three volumes are in very good condition, with only very slight discolouration to edges of boards and minimal wear to jacket edges; internally clean and bright with slight yellowing to endpapers in volume 2 ('Infantry Officer'). I have to admit that there isn’t exactly a lot of high octane action, but Sassoon keeps things moving as each chapter highlights various events of signal importance to young Sherston’s growth as both a horseman and a man, from his initial successful cricket matches and his time spent with various hunting groups, to his purchase of his first excellent “piece of horseflesh” and eventual success at the all-important point-to-point races. And if you're one of those ‘humanitarian cranks’ who worry about animal cruelty, I'm pretty sure they barely catch a single fox in the whole book.

Home to William Golding, Sylvia Plath, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Max Porter, Ingrid Persaud, Anna Burns and Rachel Cusk, among many others, Faber is proud to publish some of the greatest novelists from the early twentieth century to today. A very good copy in a very good dustwrapper, a little dusty with a short closed tear to the upper panel and some light edge wear. Some books have showed me the future, others have taken me back in the past, while others have enabled me to cope with the present. But he clearly wants to root their power in this long, dreamy remembrance of pre-war country life, so that we all understand what was lost. Not sure where that idea goes (if anywhere) and I am also reading David Jones at the moment and he may well contradict the above.An early love of Sassoon's poetry (trench warfare poetry is as good for gothic teenage tastes as Sylvia Plath) led me to finally read this book, the first in the Sherston trilogy, a fictionalised trio of biographies written by Sassoon between the two world wars. TE Lawrence once remarked that “if I were trying to export the ideal Englishman to an international exhibition, I think I’d like to choose Siegfried Sassoon for chief exhibit”. First impression of this first Tauchnitz hardback edition, from 1931, in near fine condition, no dust jacket, no interior markings, , slight fading to spine and minor shelf wear, please see pictures, PayPal accepted, any questions please get in touch. Instead we just have an uneasy sense that everything we read about has somehow been lost, and this gave the detailed explanations of fox hunting an interest that they wouldn't otherwise have had for me.