The Sherston trilogy.: [Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man; Memoirs of an Infantry Officer; Sherston's Progress.]

London: Faber & Gwyer; Faber & Faber,, 1928-36. A way of life which had gone forever First editions, first impressions, retaining the dust jackets. This lightly fictionalized trilogy details the author's lonely youth, his idle years as a country gentleman, and his military service on the Western Front. The first instalment was readily considered a "classic of its kind - an elegy for a way of life which had gone for ever" (ODNB) and was awarded the Hawthornden and James Tait Black Memorial prizes. "Like Tolstoy's War and Peace, which he was also reading while he wrote his own book, it is the combination of factual detail and direct personal experience vividly rendered that makes Infantry Officer a convincing and compelling picture of war. As he told Ottoline [Morrell], he wanted to give 'a really truthful inner-narrative'. He believed that this had not yet been achieved by an English writer, apart from Blunden" (Wilson, p. 238). Sassoon considered the final instalment, Sherston's Progress, his best. It describes his recovery and return to the war after being treated by Dr W. H. R. Rivers at Craiglockhart War Hospital. At the author's request, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man was initially published anonymously, though his identity was soon revealed following the work's immediate success. In response, Sassoon's name was added to the title page halfway through the printing of the second impression, and he was credited in the two works that followed. Three works, octavo. Original blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt, top edges dyed various colours. With dust jackets. Bookseller's ticket of Albert Dowling, Bristol, on front pastedown of Infantry Officer; publisher's mailing card loosely inserted in Sherston's Progress. Cloth a little faded in places, Sherston's Progress with cocked spine, others square, foxing and browning to edges and outer leaves, contents generally clean; jackets lightly soiled, a few closed tears and chips, sometime restored for Fox-Hunting Man and reinforced with tape on verso of Sherston's Progress, jackets unclipped: a very good set in like jackets. Keynes A30a, A33a & A40a. Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey from the Trenches, 2003.