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SASSOON TO OTTOLINE MORRELL 66. [SASSOON, Siegfried] LINGUAL EXERCISES FOR ADVANCED VOCABULARI- ANS Privately printed at the University Press, 1925. First edition, one of 99 copies. Original brown buckram, spine lettered in gilt. Presenta- tion copy, inscribed by the author to Lady Ottoline Morrell with the author’s mono- gram. A near fine copy, with just a touch of tanning to the spine. [40852] £2,500 A scarce collection of poetry, ostensibly anonymous, but privately published by Sassoon for dis- tribution amongst his friends. The verses, seemingly a reaction to the war and his poems of that period, are both skittish and ironic and sometimes urbane. Writing later to his publisher about including some verses from this work in a collection, Sassoon states, “I have done with verbal gymnastics in the future. Being smart don’t suit me, really. But it was a phase that had to be worked out...” A meaningful association copy. Ottoline Morrell, literary hostess and patron to so many writers found in Sassoon a willing protégé. She became aware of himwhen she read his poem ‘To Victory’ in The Times on 15 January 1916, and traced him through Edmund Gosse. He would stay at Gars- ington when on leave and Morrell did much to support and promote his work. 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’ - Max Egremont (Siegfried Sassoon). One of the verses, “To An Old Lady, Dead” is annotated, presumably by Morrell’s son Julian, “My Grandmother H.A.Morrell”.
SASSOON TO EDWARD CARPENTER - ONE OF 35 COPIES 65. [SASSOON, Siegfried] MELODIES [Privately printed for the author at the] Chiswick Press, 1912. First edition. Original publisher’s blue wrappers bound with string, lettered in black. Author’s presentation copy, inscribed on the title page, “Edward Carpenter: from Sieg- fried Sassoon. June 1912”. Title printed in red and black, woodcut printer’s device on colophon. A near fine copy, the edges of the wrappers a little creased. Housed in cloth chemise and slipcase. [40851] £6,500 One of Sassoon’s rarest works limited to only 35 copies. An important association, inscribed to the man who helped Sassoon discover his own homosex- uality. Edward Carpenter was one of the most prominent campaigners for homosexual rights of the period and is a landmark early work on homosexuality and gender fluidity, The Intermediate Sex was published was to greatly influence Sassoon who read it in 1911. He immediately wrote to Carpenter, describing him as, “the leader and the prophet”, and stating, “What ideas I had about homosexuality were absolutely prejudicial and I was in such a groove that I couldn’t allow myself to be what I wished to be... the intense attraction I felt for my own sex was almost a subconscious thing and my antipathies for women a mystery to me... I cannot say what it [The Intermediate Sex] has done for me. I am a different being and have a definite aim in life and something to lean on.” (Letter dated 27 July 1911) Sassoon regular correspondence with Carpenter lasted until 1918 during which time he send po- ems and books, such as this one, in thanks for the revelation Carpenter’s writing engendered.
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