Selected Letters of Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden, 1919–1967

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Editor: Carol Z Rothkopf

The Pickering Masters

Of the sixteen World War I poets memorialized in Westminster Abbey, two were destined to become lifelong friends. Although both served on the Western Front, it was not until 1919 that Siegfried Sassoon received his first letter from Edmund Blunden. Blunden, while still at Oxford, submitted some of his poems to the Daily Herald’s Literary Editor (Sassoon) and thus began a friendship that lasted almost half a century.

The intensity of their friendship allowed them to appraise each other’s writing in ways which neither poet would have accepted from another critic. The strength of this bond is all the more remarkable as it had to endure periods where they did not meet for several years.

This collection of Sassoon and Blunden’s correspondence contains more than 1,000 letters, cards and telegrams. They discuss each other’s work and that of their contemporaries, such as Robert Graves, John Masefield, Thomas Hardy and T S Eliot, as well as an impressive range of nineteenth-century poets. Exchanges about book collecting – both had extensive libraries – and about their beloved game of cricket also abound. The details of their lives and times make these documents a fantastic resource not only for scholars of Sassoon and Blunden themselves, but for anyone with an interest in the social and literary world in which they lived.

• Over 1,000 items of correspondence
• All letters have been newly transcribed from the originals
• Letters have been sourced from six archives based in institutions from the USA and UK as well as from private collections
• Preface written by Max Egremont, accalimed biographer of Siegfried Sassoon
• Editorial material includes a general introduction, textual as well as explanatory notes and a consolidated index in the final volume

Contents

Preface – Lord Egremont

Introduction: The Poets' Landscapes
Notes on the Editing
The Value of the Pound

The Letters
1919–1929
1930–1939
1940–1947
1951–1959
1960–1967

A Postscript from the Editor
Register of Letters
Index

Reviews

'a tremendous accomplishment and one that will be of great value to scholars and students for years to come.' Thomas F Staley, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Related titles

• Medicine and Modernism : A Biography of Sir Henry Head
• The Correspondence of H G Wells
• The Journals and Diaries of E M Forster

Leaflets

• Colour leaflet

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