Correspondence to Siegfried Sassoon, 1916-1934

Siegfried Lorraine Sassoon (1886-1967) was a British poet and prose writer. His best known works include some one hundred poems that expose the horror of the trenches and protest the continuation of World War I. After the war, Sassoon also produced a series of autobiographical works. The partially fictionalized Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man won both the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Three more autobiographical works, including Siegfried's Journey 1916-1920, describe his early years through the Great War. Turning increasingly contemplative and religious in his later life and poetry, he nonetheless stayed in contact with many of his friends from the Bloomsbury Group.

This series contains thirty-six letters and postcards to Siegfried Sassoon, all but one handwritten by Lady Ottoline Morrell; one was penned by Philip Morrell. The earliest letter is dated June 26 and is most likely from 1916; the last is dated December 24, probably in 1934. The bulk of the letters and postcards are from the period between 1930 and 1934. Several of the letters include Sassoon's lover Stephen Tennant in the salutation. The postcards were mailed from all over England and the Continent. The correspondence covers a variety of topics including Sassoon's writing; D. H. Lawrence's death; Virginia Woolf, Edmund Blunden, and other mutual acquaintances; books; health; and various locales. The materials are arranged chronologically.