With the scarce first issue wrapper

Sassoon, Siegfried ~ The War Poems

William Heinemann, London : 1919

The First UK printing published by William Heinemann, London in 1919. 12mo., original red publisher's cloth, with the striking printed labels to upper cover and spine which were designed by the artist William Nicholson; With the original first issue red printed wrapper, priced '3/6' to spine; with publisher's ads to flaps and the lower panel; The BOOK is an excellent, bright copy, lightly bumped and sunned to the spine tips and corners; faint offsetting to end-papers; very mild spotting to prelims; A neat previous owner's stamp to the ffep. THE WRAPPER, seldom found at all, is in Very Good+ condition, completely unrestored; a little toned to the upper panel, spine and folds; lightly creased along folds and with some losses to the spine tips and ends of folds; the lettering to spine faded but still legible; and a couple of small brown stains in places. A remarkable survivor. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. The author's classic collection of poetry, which contains a total of 64 verses, 12 of which were published here for the very first time. It was reportedly published in a run of 2,000 copies on 30th October 1919. Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886 –1967) is remembered today as being one of the leading poets of the First World War. Joining the army before war had even been declared, he was already serving in the Sussex Yeomanry on the 4th August 1914, the date that the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. While in France, he met and befriended the poet Robert Graves, and this influence, coupled with the horrors of war, was to have a profound impact on his subsequent literary output. Where previously there had been romantic depictions of life, his poetry became increasingly graphic, and he frequently described the corpses of soldiers, the filth and the darkness around him. Marked by his companions for his outstanding bravery in the face of danger, he was awarded the Military Cross on the 27 July 1916, and was subsequently recommended for the Victoria Cross, however after the death of his friend David Cuthbert Thomas, he began to take a stand against what he believed to be a futile war full of 'aggression and conquest'. Instead of being court martialled, he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital for shell shock, where he met Wilfred Owen. The pair became close friends, and Owen wrote at the time that it was Sassoon who encouraged him to write - after Owen's death in 1918 it was Sassoon who helped to bring his friend's poems to a wider audience. Sassoon's war poems include unflinchingly honest accounts of life on the front lines of the war, his transition from warrior to pacifist, and an overwhelming acknowledgement of the irreparable change happening around him. This collection includes some of his most famous poems, including 'The Last Meeting' ('I know that he is lost among the stars / And may return no more but in their light'); 'The Dug-Out' ('You are too young to fall asleep for ever / And when you sleep you remind me of the dead') and 'The Death Bed' ('But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went / And there was silence in the summer night'). They remain some of the most deeply moving, honest and impassioned verses, epitomising the global consciousness of a grieving society during the First World War, as well as the experiences of the soldiers living, at the time, day to day through that conflict. Very rare to find this book with the correct first issue wrapper in unrestored condition.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Very Good+