Siegfried Sassoon Collection

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) is one of Clare’s most notable alumni.  To accompany Sassoon’s biography for Clare’s ‘70 for 700’ series, here’s a look at some of the treasures contained in Clare’s Fellows’ Library and Archives associated with the celebrated war poet.

Picture-Show

Picture-Show, from 1919, is the earliest publication of Sassoon’s to be held by the College. Sassoon eschewed commercial publishers and chose to privately publish this collection of poetry in a small print run of 200 in Cambridge. Amongst those responsible for the production of the book were Augustus Bartholomew, the Under-Librarian at Cambridge University Library, and Bruce Rogers, one of the leading American typographers of the twentieth century.  Sassoon told Bartholomew to make Picture-Show ‘look as expensive’ as possible. [i] 

Picture Show includes Everyone Sang, one of Sassoon’s best-known poems written especially for the volume.  Although it gained synonymity with the Armistice, Sassoon composed the poem in reference to post-war life, with the ‘singing’ referring to the hope of social change, rather than marching soldiers singing in celebration as popularly believed at the time.[ii]

 Early Morning Long Ago

Early Morning Long Ago, an extract from Sassoon’s The Weald of Youth, is a very scarce printing from 1941 which the author gave to the Master of Clare, Henry Thirkhiill, in 1954 after being invited to dine in College.  The accompanying letter in the volume, written by Sassoon to the Master, is now in the College Archive.  In the letter, Sassoon writes, ‘No need to say again how much I appreciated the welcome given me by the College.  It was absolute bliss! [iii]  In Early Morning Long Ago, Sassoon describes in prose a summer’s break of day of June 1939 in the Weald.  Within are handwritten changes to the text made by Sassoon, demonstrating his working methods.  These changes to the text were realised in The Weald of Youth when it was first published in full the following year.

Fifty copies of Early Morning Long Ago were printed at the Chiswick Press, part of the private press movement which carefully considered all aspects of the production and design of books as a reaction against industrial and mass printing.  In the accompanying letter to Thirkhill, Sassoon explains that the book is printed on 18^th century paper - a fact which has not hitherto received scholarly attention.

Let Dons Delight by Ronald Knox

This book by Ronald Knox (1888-1957) was once owned by Sassoon and given to his friend Nicholas Herbert, Lord Hemingford (Clare 1953). Herbert subsequently bequeathed the book amongst other ‘Sassooniana’ to the Fellows’ library and College archives. The book is a gently satirical sequence of visions dreamt by an Oxford don at fifty-year intervals from 1588 to 1938, referencing scholarly history at his university along the way. In addition to satirical works, detective fiction and short stories, Knox also published sermons and theological works.

Sassoon’s conversion to Catholicism was much influenced by Knox, a Catholic priest and fellow convert, whom he knew personally: Sassoon regularly mentions Knox in his letters to Herbert kept in the College archives. In his letter to Herbert in December 1957 (four months after Knox’s death), Sassoon writes of his conversion to Catholicism, ‘I just walked into the Faith, which appeared to be my inevitable habitation or refuge’, and, ‘I go on reading dear Ronnie [Knox]’s sermons… [I] am not fit to black his boots or polish his celestial spectacles’. [iv] Sassoon and Knox are buried in the same churchyard, at St Andrew's Church, Mells, Somerset.

Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man

This copy of Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man by Sassoon was given as a gift to Winston Churchill by his children.  The handwritten inscription on the upper endpaper reads, "Papa from Diana, Randolph, Sarah, Mary. Christmas 1928."  This donation was made possible by Cambridge in America and Tracey and Shanin Specter. [v]

Winston Churchill was a great admirer of Sassoon’s anti-war poetry, even if it was at odds with his own philosophy.  When they met in 1918, Sassoon was flattered by Churchill’s compliments on his poetry and the fact that he had memorised them, though he felt that he was trying to goad him into a heated discussion on their opposing views of war. [vi]   Churchill even considered offering Sassoon a job at the ministry of munitions, despite Sassoon’s anti-war stance.  Churchill said of Sassoon, ‘That man can think.  I am afraid only of people who cannot think.'[vii]

Clare’s collection of Sassoon-related rare books has now been catalogued on idiscover, the University of Cambridge’s online catalogue.