Thursday, August 19, 2010
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon was born on 8th September 1886 in Kent. He studied in Marlborough College then Clare College, Cambridge but left without a degree. For the next eight years he spent his time hunting, playing sports and writing poetry. Published privately, Sassoon's poetry made very little impact on the critics or the book buying public.
With the onset of the war, and at the age of 28, Sassoon enlisted first as a cavalry trooper in the Sussex Yeomanry before transferring to the Royal Welch Fusiliers as an officer in May 1915, where he met Robert Graves. He quickly developed the nickname 'Mad Jack' for his fearless courage on the Western Front, often volunteering to lead night raids. In addition to publishing anti-war rhetoric in The Old Huntsman (1917) and Counter-Attack (1918), Sassoon wrote three volumes of classic fictional autobiography loosely based upon his immediate pre-war and war experiences: Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man (1928, initially published under a pseudonym); Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930); and Sherston's Progress (1936).
He followed these with three volumes of actual autobiography: The Old Century (1938); The Weald of Youth (1942); and Siegfried's Journey (1945).
Siegfried Sassoon, who married once, died in 1967.
Reference: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jsassoon.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon
Ended my post @ 4:28 AM
