THE FIRST ADVANCE PROOF.

SASSOON, Siegfried ~ Sherston’s Progress.

Faber and Faber Limited, London: 1936.

Small 8vo., publisher's orange wraps lettered in black to upper cover and spine; housed in a burnt orange slipcase; THE BOOK very good, some darkening and creasing along backstrip; a little splayed, otherwise clean internally; the slipcase with some associate rubbing and nicking to the cloth. The book is protected in a removable mylar cover. FIRST UK ADVANCE PROOF. This copy comes together with the publisher's order form, and the Sales Manager's compliments slip, with the publication date and price handwritten, tipped in to the ffep. The third book in Sassoon's three-volume, fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the Sherston trilogy, comprised of 'Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man' (1928), 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer' (1930) and this, 'Sherston's Progress' (1936). Prior to this publication, Sassoon had predominantly been known for his war poetry, and was nervous enough that the first volume appeared anonymously. Based on material from his own diaries and journals, the books follow the life and journey of George Sherston (Sassoon) from his youth to his enlistment in a local regiment, the Sussex Yeomanry, his war service and experiences in the trenches, and his war injury and convalescene, coinciding with his changing attitudes to war. The present volume follows the narrator from his arrival at 'Slateford War Hospital' in Edinburgh (based on Craiglockhart War Hospital) for shell-shocked soldiers, through to his encounter with neurologist W. H. R. Rivers (who had a profound influence on Sassoon in real life), and his subsequent return to the front line. "Here is the long-hoped-for volume" the enclosed publisher's note states, "It is a storyof growth-from the somewhat self-conscious youth, who felt it to be his duty to defy the authorities, into the man, who knew 'that going back to war as soon as possible was my only chance of peace". In reality, Sassoon maintained a complex relationship with the idea of the war, Counter-Attack) and his semi-fictionalized George Sherston memoirs, grappling with his own trauma, loss, and the heavy moral cost of the conflict. Very scarce thus.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good