A catalogue of a fine collection of privately printed and inscribed books by Siegfried Sassoon, with notable recipients incluidng his wife, John Masefield, Walter De La Mare and Ottoline Morrell.
S I EGFRI ED SASSOON
SIEGFRIED SASSOON
private printings and association copies
J ONK ER S RAR E B OOK S
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JONKERS RARE BOOKS
ONE OF 35 COPIES
1. Melodies [Privately printed for the author at the] Chiswick Press, 1912. First edition. Original publisher’s blue wrappers bound with string, lettered in black. Title printed in red and black, woodcut printer’s device on colophon. A very good copy indeed, light toning to covers. [41804] £2,500 One of Sassoon’s rarest works limited to only 35 copies. Introduced by a mutual friend, the writer Edmund Blun- den, Dennis and Sassoon became and stayed fast friends, united by a love of literature and cricket. PROVENANCE: Dennis Silk (1931-2019), one of Sas- soon’s closest friends in later life, his bookplate to front pastedown.
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2. Discoveries Privately Published by the Author, 1915.
First edition. A single sewn quire of eight leaves. One of fifty copies privately published by the author. Original green paper wrappers, printed in black. A very good copy, lightly foxed and a neat internal repair to the spine. [41811] £2,000 Written and published whilst on leave, having broken his arm on service with the Sussex Yeomanry, it contains some of best regarded of Sassoon’s ‘paradise’ poetry, and sees the first appearance of several of the works cho - sen for his first commercially issued collection of poems, The Old Huntsman & Other Poems , published in 1917. PROVENANCE: Dennis Silk (1931-2019) bookplate to inside cover).
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INSCRIBED FOR PERCY MUIR
ten by the poet T.W.H. Crosland, mocking Yeats), and awarded it the invented Chantrey Prize prior to publication. In Goodbye To All That, Robert Graves de- scribed the poem as “a satire on Masefield which, about halfway through, had forgotten to be a satire and was rather good Masefield”. Edmund Gosse, an early supporter of Sassoon, also thought it better than mere satire, describ- ing it as “a tale of rustic tragedy told with real pathos and power, only exactly as Masefield would tell it. The end is extremely beautiful”. Indeed, Gosse was so impressedwith the work that he sent it on to Eddie Marsh, publisher of Georgian Poetry, who asked Sassoon to send on more of his work, hence introducing him to one of the most influential figures in pre-war poetic circles. PROVENANCE: Percy Muir (1894–1979), an- tiquarian bookseller.
3. The Daffodil Murderer Being the Chantrey Prize Poem John Richmond Ltd, 1913. First edition. Original yellow paper wrappers, lettered red. Inscribed by Sassoon for Percy Muir on the front endpaper, “P. H. Muir from Siegfried Sassoon. 4.10.29.” Housed in a cus- tom cloth case. A very good copy, with very light edge wear to the wrappers, and some light spotting internally. [41566] £2,750 Sassoon’s early satire of Masefield, whose in - vented praise on the cover, “brilliant beyond belief”, barely covers the fictitious depths on the publication. Sassoon published the work under the pseudonym ‘Saul Kain’ (taken from the protagonist of Masefield’s The Everlasting Mercy), prefaced it with a pseudonymous in- troduction by ‘William Butler’ (actually writ-
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4. Picture Show Privately Printed for the Author by J. B. Peace, M.A., at the University Press, Cambridge, June 1919. First edition. One of two hundred copies privately printed by the author. Signed by Sassoon to colophon page, with his holograph note “[Typography by Bruce Rogers]” written as an extension of the colophon. Bound in brown paper-covered boards, title label to upper cover, in the plain brown dustwrapper. A near fine copy, light bump to the base of the spine, in a very good dust - wrapper, quite worn but it has protected the book well. [41567] £2,250 A handsomely produced privately printed book which includes nine poems that would appear in The War Poems Of Siegfried Sassoon later in 1919.
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HIS WIFE’S COPY 5. Lingual Exercises For Advanced Vocabularians Privately printed at the University Press, 1925.
First edition, one of 99 copies. Original brown buckram, spine lettered in gilt. Sassoon’s wife’s copy, inscribed by him on the limitation page “Hester’s Copy, January 1st 1934”. A near fine copy. [41568] £2,000 An excellent association copy and relic of Sassoon’s passionate early relationship with his wife. Sassoon met Hester Gatty on 5th September 1933, and within weeks was composing love letters of the most ardent sort; “I believe that my whole life has been a preparation for the moment when I met you & know, in my soul, that we were made for one another. You, the first woman I have ever loved” (October 1933). The couple married on 18th December 1933, only a couple of months after meeting, and exactly two weeks before this copy was inscribed. Lingual Exercises is a scarce collection of poetry, ostensibly anonymous, but privately published by Sassoon for distribution 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.
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FOR OTTOLINE MORRELL 6. Lingual Exercises For Advanced Vocabularians Privately printed at the University Press, 1925.
First edition, one of 99 copies. Original brown buckram, spine lettered in gilt. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author to Lady Ottoline Morrell with the author’s monogram. A near fine copy, with just a touch of tanning to the spine. [40852] £2,500
A meaningful association copy. Ottoline Mor- rell was one of the most significant figures in Sassoon’s life as his war poems began to gain popularity. 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. He would stay at Garsington 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 pleas- ure 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 Ju- lian, “My Grandmother H.A.Morrell”.
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FOUR SASSOON BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY OF OTTOLINE MORRELL Ottoline Morrell was one of the most significant figures in Sassoon’s life as his war poems began to gain popularity. 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. He would stay at Garsington when on leave and Morrell was immediately attracted to him, but ultimately failed to have him fall in love with her. Despite this, she did much to support and promote his work, including turning Virginia Woolf into a admirer and making countless important literary introductions. PROVENANCE: From the library of Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938), sold at her sale, Christies, 1st November 2006, lot 132.
7. Nativity No. 7 of The Ariel Poems
Faber & Gwyer, [1927]. First edition. Original purple paper wrappers, printed black. Signed by Sas- soon above the Nash illustration. Colour illustration by Paul Nash. A very good copy. [41570] £250 A meaningful association copy.
8. To My Mother No. 14 of The Ariel Poems
Faber & Gwyer, [1928]. First edition. Original blue paper wrappers, printed black. Signed by Sas- soon above the Tennant illustration. Colour illustration by Stephen Tennant. A very good copy, a little faded. [41569] £250 A meaningful association copy.
9. In Sicily No. 27 of The Ariel Poems
Faber and Faber, 1930. First edition. Number 96 of 400 copies signed by Sassoon. Publisher’s green boards lettered black. One line drawing and one colour illustration by Stephen Tennant. A very good copy. [41572] £300 A meaningful association copy. 10. To The Red Rose No. 34 of The Ariel Poems Faber and Faber, 1931. First edition. Number 38 of 400 copies signed by Sassoon. Publisher’s green boards lettered red. Colour illustration by Stephen Tennant. A very good copy. [41571] £300 A meaningful association copy.
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INSCRIBED FOR A CHILDHOOD FRIEND
11. Sherston’s Progress Faber & Faber, 1936.
First edition. Publisher’s blue cloth, lettered gilt, in the blue printed dustwrapper. Inscribed by Sassoon on the half-title, “H. F. Thompson. From his very (and affectionate) old friend Siegfried Sassoon. Heytesbury. Dec. 16. 1936.” A very good copy in a very good dustwrapper, some toning and wear to spine. [41573] £1,250 An excellent association copy. H. F. Thompson was a childhood friend of Sassoon’s, whom he met at Henley House. Sassoon much preferred Henley House to Marlborough, as Egremont notes in his biography of Sassoon: “In this gentler place Sassoon made greater friends than at Marlborough: Henry Thompson from Cumberland, again a golfer with a ‘delightful cronyish quality’.” Later, when Sassoon was wrestling with his first volume of autobiography, Memoirs Of A Fox-Hunting Man, he dined with Thompson. Egremont notes that “On 21 November [1926] he could not work, an accumulation of insomnia and low spirits, then after dinner with H. F. Thomp- son, a childhood friend, talk about the memoirs led to another 500 words”.
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INSCRIBED FOR STEPHEN TENNANT’S BIBLIOPHILIC GARDENERS
12. The Memoirs Of George Sherston Memoirs Of A Fox-Hunting Man; Memoirs Of An Infantry Officer; Sherston’s Progress New York, Doubleday, Doran, 1937. First American collected edition. Publisher’s red cloth, lettered and decorated black and gilt, in the pictorial dustwrapper by Haberstock. Inscribed by Sassoon for Beryl and Eileen Hunter, “Ber- yl and Eileen for their collection of S. S. editions” to first blank. Also with Sassoon’s additional annotation “(For this Americanism in book production!)” to the foot of prefatory note. 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. [41577] £1,250 Beryl and Eileen Hunter were gardeners for Stephen Tennant at Wilsford. They began collecting Sassoon’s work prior to meeting him, but after he began his love affair with Tennant in the 1920s, they became regular correspondents, and Sassoon would gift them inscribed copies of his work.
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INSCRIBED FOR WALTER DE LA MARE
13. The Old Century And Seven More Years Faber and Faber, 1938.
First edition. Publisher’s black cloth, lettered gilt, in the original dustwrapper. Inscribed by Sas- soon for Walter De La Mare, “Dear Old Ben from his old friend S.S. Heytesbury. Sept. 25, 1938” A fine copy in a near fine dustwrapper, light toning to spine. [41574] £2,250 An exceptional presentation copy from Sassoon to his close collaborator and fellow Georgian poet Walter De La Mare. De La Mare was an important early influence on Sassoon’s poetry, and Sassoon found his work a great comfort during the war. Indeed, on June 3rd 1918, after reading some of De La Mare’s poems while sitting by some French graves, he wrote in his notebook the short poem ‘On reading de la Mare’s poems after the day’s work’ which opened:
“When the hard day is done, I read your book, Deep in the haunted forest, where the brook
Sings, betwixt day’s last dream and dawn’s first spear You hushed me with your dreams and peace draws near.”
Their work appeared alongside each other’s in the 1916-17, and 1918-19 volumes of Eddie Marsh’s Georgian Poetry, and Sassoon’s first visit to De La Mare in Hertfordshire shortly followed the publication of the 1919 volume. Their friendship grew in the post-war years, and in his 1924 poem Cary Castle, inspired by a visit with De La Mare, he imagined them as “two poets at the edge of time”. PROVENANCE: Walter De La Mare (1873-1956).
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INSCRIBED FOR JOHN MASEFIELD
14. The Tasking Privately printed at the University Press, Cambridge, 1954 .
First edition. Number 56 of 100 copies privately printed for Siegfried Sassoon and Geoffrey Keynes. Original quarter cloth over marbled paper covered boards. Inscribed by Sassoon for John Masefield, “SS for J.M.”. With Masefield’s bookplate to the front pastedown. A near fine copy, light fading to spine. [41575] £1,500 John Masefield was a significant influence on Sassoon’s early work, and later became a friend, following an introduction facilitated by Ottoline Morrell. Indeed, the first work that introduced Sassoon to a wider audience, The Daffodil Murderer, falls somewhere between a parody and imitation of Masefield. Sassoon wrote the poem after reading Masefield’s The Everlasting Mercy, chose as his nom de plume that of the protagonist of that poem, and titled it after Masefield’s recent collection The Daffodil Fields.
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INSCRIBED FOR GEORGE COX
15. An Adjustment With A Foreword By Philip Gosse The Golden Head Press, 1955. First edition. Number 30 of 150 copies. This copy inscribed by Sassoon for the cricketer George Cox, “George Cox from SS”. Original green paper wrapper. A very good copy. [41813] £750 PROVENANCE: George Cox Jr. (1911-1985), English first class cricketer, correspondent of Sas - soon and Edmund Blunden and close friend of Dennis Silk; Dennis Silk (1931-2019).
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WITH A MANUSCRIPT POEM
16. The Path To Peace Selected Poems From Siegfried Sassoon Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1960.
First edition. 4to. Number 67 of 480 copies on handmade paper. Original quarter vellum over paper covered boards. Finely set in Romulus Cancelleresca Bastarda, and and printed in blue and black, with hand-rubricated initials in red and gold. With the original glassine dustwrapper. With: A manuscript copy of ‘Unfoldment’, in Sassoon’s hand and signed with his monogram. 1p. And offprints of three additional poems, ‘Awaitment’, ‘A Prayer In Old Age’, ‘Proven Purpose. Each 1p., and printed on handmade paper; the first with an initial hand-rubricated in green. A contemporary newspaper review of the collection, to which Sassoon has annotated the word “Sundays” to the margin. A fine copy. [41806] £750 PROVENANCE: Dennis Silk (1931-2019), one of Sassoon’s closest in later life, his bookplate to front pastedown.
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17. The Path To Peace Selected Poems From Siegfried Sassoon Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1960.
First edition. 4to. Number 23 of 480 copies on handmade paper. Original quarter vellum over pa- per covered boards. Finely set in Romulus Cancelleresca Bastarda, and printed in blue and black, with hand-rubricated initials in red and gold. With the original glassine dustwrapper, and the original thick paper dustwrapper also. With: An offprint of the poem ‘Awaitment’, with an initial hand-rubricated in purple. The original prospectus for the book’s publication. 4pp. A fine copy, the paper dustwrapper with a couple nicks and tears, but the book itself is beautifully well-preserved. [41807] £375 A fine collection, with poems selected from across Sassoon’s career, from 1909 to 1960. PROVENANCE: Dennis Silk (1931-2019), one of Sassoon’s closest friends in later life, his book- plate to front pastedown.
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