Siegfried Sassoon Book

This monumental biography tells in full detail the story of Siegfried Sassoon, one of the finest poets of the First World War. Until now, there has been no full-scale biography of him despite his influence on modern poetry and literature. The long wait for this book now makes it possible to tell his story much more frankly than it would have been at his death thirty years ago. This is particularly true of his struggle to come to terms with his homosexuality, a conflict he wanted to describe himself, but which the law discouraged in his lifetime.

With the cooperation of his family and friends and access to an abundance of private and unpublished material, Jean Moorcroft Wilson reveals the fascinating first three decades of Siegfried Sassoon's life. A descendant of merchant princes and farmer-artists, a Jew turned Catholic and a husband and father, Sassoon was at once shy and extremely impulsive. He was one of the few War poets whose daring exploits at the Front earned him a Military Cross, as well as the epithet "Mad Jack". Nonetheless, this decorated War hero emerged as one of the angry young poets who denounced the "Old Men" in scathing satires. His life was one of complexity, yet Wilson tells his story with elegance and grace.