Product Description

The eagerly awaited volume II of Jean Moorcroft Wilson's masterful biography of Siegfried Sassoon now launched in paperback; Where most veterans of the Great War returned home traumatised by the carnage in the trenches, Siegfried Sassoon had received recognition for his superbly vivid poetry and the bravery both on the battlefield and back home. In rapid succession, he had numerous homosexual affairs: none of them ultimately satisfying. Yet he also started on his great trilogy of anti-hero novels, Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Sherston's Progress. Jean Moocroft Wilson continues to impress with the eagerly awaited second volume of her definitive biography of Sassoon. Showing how a homosexual poet came to define heroism not only during the war, but even more so after the war until now, she has unearthed many new facts about Sassoon.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #129812 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 526 pages

Review
"The Making of a War Poet: 'promises to be the definitive biography...compassionate as well as critical' Robert Nye, The Scotsman 'Invaluable' Andrew Motion, The Times 'thorough and perceptive' Jeremy Lewis, The Observer 'necessary and engrossing' Neil Powell, TLS 'compelling' Ian Hamilton, The Sunday Telegraph"

Robert Nye, The Scotsman
'... the first volume of what promises to be the definitive biography of an important and neglected poet.'

Ian Hamilton, Sunday Telegraph
'A compelling tale'

Customer Reviews

The poet as a hero
This is a facsinating read. Siegfried Sassoon has become the figure who ultimately epitomizes the anger, disillusionment and protest which the Great War fuelled, and through the poetry which he wrote during this time, his memory has taken on an almost mythic quality.
However, as Dr.Wilson shows in the second volume of her Sassoon biography, Sassoon was by no means confined to writing "tracts agaisnst war" (as he put it), and went on to produce some wonderful poetry after the war, although perhaps less of is as immediately striking as his war verse.
Wilsons' tale of Sassoon is sympathetic and warmly told, and presents a sometimes endearing characters' struggle with love, his art and the turbulent emotions which dogged his long life, including those produced by what he called "the cursed nuisance of sex" and his inability to reconcile Eros with his higher sensibilities.
A charming tale, delightfully told.

A lengthy though fairly detailed account of Sassoon's life.
This is the first volume of a two-volume account of the life of First World War poet and autobiographer Siegfried Sassoon. This weighty first volume takes the reader up to the end of Sassoon's participation in the First World War. It is particularly detailed on the background of his mother's family, the engineering dynasty of the Thornycrofts. Anyone who has read either Michael Thorpe's (now sadly out-of-print) account of Sassoon, "Siegfried Sassoon : A Critical Study" (OUP, 1967) or Paul Moeyes's more recent biography "Siegfried Sassoon : Scorched Glory" (Macmillan, 1997) will already be familiar with much of the material in Moorcroft Wilson's book, and in particular, the details of his father's family.

"The Making of a War Poet", does, however, cover the background of Sassoon's homosexuality in more detail than either of the aforementioned accounts did. It will be interesting to see what Moorcroft Wilson makes of his lengthy relationship with Stephen Tennant and his marriage to Hester Gatty.

Fans of Pat Barker's "Regeneration" trilogy (Viking, 1996) may be put off buying this biography by its price - particularly in view of the fact that this first volume covers much the same ground that Pat Barker has covered in her trilogy, and that Sassoon himself covered in his many semi-autobiographical and autobiographical accounts of his life. (See "Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man", "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer", "Sherston's Progress", "The Old Century and Seven More Years", "The Weald of Youth" and "Siegfried's Journey", Faber and Faber).

However if you have the price of the book to spare and time to read it then you will probably enjoy this book. Myself, I shall be interested to read volume two when it appears.

Absolutely fantastic - the definite Sassoon biography!
This biography provides a fascinating insight into Sassoon's experiences during the war and as a poet, with in-depth and sensitive treatment of issues such as his war protest and his homosexuality. I recommend this to all Sassoon enthusiasts and eagerly await the second volume.