105
106
105 SASSOON, Siegfried. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man.
First edition, first impression, presentation copy with a significant association, inscribed by the author on the half-title: “To O.M. from ‘S.K.’” (Ottoline Morrell from Saul Kain). Perhaps the most important support that Lady Ottoline Morrell ever offered to a poet or artist was her friendship for Siegfried Sassoon during the First World War. She became aware of him when she read his poem “To Victory” in The Times on 15 January 1916, and traced him through Edmund Gosse. Like her he was an admirer of the Ballets Russes, and she wrote of her pleasure at finding “in the dark prison-like days a sympathetic desire – to fly out beyond into the beauty and colour and freedom that one so longs for” (Egremont, p. 81). They continued to correspond frequently, and Sassoon sent her his war poems as he wrote them, in return for which she sent writings of her own. Morrell was of significant influence when Sassoon recuperated at the Morrells’ country house, Garsington Manor, in spring 1917. Morrell’s pacifism helped Sassoon’s disillusionment with the war and, shortly after his visit, Sassoon published his infamous “Soldier’s Declaration”. This pseudonymous parody of John Masefield’s early narrative poems was published as the winner of the fictional “Chantrey Prize” and wryly advertised as “Brilliant Beyond Belief” on the front wrapper. Masefield’s narrative poem The Everlasting Mercy , published in 1911, work was read in pubs, denounced from pulpits and branded (in the words of Lord Alfred Douglas) “nine-tenths sheer filth”. Sassoon appears to have been rather frustrated at literature’s latest craze and he sat down to write his own version and created a parody of Masefield’s general style, diction and subjects. There were two results of Sassoon’s parody. The first was that, in many ways it had helped Sassoon find a poetic voice. In The Weald of Youth , Sassoon describes how, in December 1912, the thought struck him: “Why not amuse myself by scribbling a few pages of parody? I may as well say at once that the immediate result was far beyond what I had intended . . . After the first fifty lines or so, I dropped the pretence that I was improvising an exuberant skit. While continuing to burlesque Masefield for all I was worth, I was really feeling what I wrote – and doing it not
[London:] Faber and Gwyer, 1928 Inscribed to his great love
First edition, first impression, an extraordinary presentation copy inscribed by Sassoon on the half-title to Stephen Tennant (1906– 1987), “To Stephen with love from the author”. This first instalment of his Memoirs was published anonymously and without dedication, though this copy might as well be the dedication copy, inscribed to the most important person in Sassoon’s life at the time. They had met in the summer of 1927, while Sassoon was working on the present book. Following the first weekend of their affair, Sassoon recorded in his diary that Tennant “seems to me the most enchanting creature I have ever met”. The following year he would add that “I ask nothing but to be near him always”, and that with Tennant he knew “perfect happiness”. Sassoon shared excerpts of the manuscript with Tennant throughout its composition, noting on 11 January 1928 that Stephen “adored” what he had read. By publication in September 1928, they were touring Europe together, and while in Venice managed to secure a copy of The Observer to read J. C. Squire’s positive review. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With the dust jacket. A good copy, triangular gouge to lower cover, some damp marks to cloth at fore-edges, the wrapper a little chipped and worn with splits to the upper joint. £9,500 [157960] 106 SASSOON, Siegfried, as Saul Kain. The Daffodil Murderer. Being the Chantrey Prize Poem. London: John Richmond Ltd, 1913 Sassoon’s pseudonymous parody inscribed to Lady Ottoline Morrell
ONLY CONNECT
82
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker