The Memoirs of George Sherston brings together in one memorable volume the three widely-hailed “autobiographical novels” of the eminent English poet, Siegfried Sassoon. Set against the dark background of World War this extraordinary trilogy follows the author’s wartime fortunes and examines his emotional growth under the cruel pressures of hand-to-hand combat in the field. Perhaps the most striking qualities of Sassoon’s record are its honesty, its simplicity and its lack of pretentiousness and false heroics. It is, after all, a deeply personal account of a complete phase of a man’s life, spanning in continuous narrative form the period from the author’s childhood to the war’s end. The trilogy begins with Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, a fond reminiscence of boyhood and adolescence set against the background of the author’s rural English home. Full of the scent of leather and the huntsman cries on a frosty autumn morning, the scene is set as the world moves slowly towards war. In the second volume, The Memoirs of an Infantry Office, the mood deepens. A classic among war books, it tells of the author’s steady disillusionment with the Army and of his ultimate rebellion against the cruel realities of war. Finally, in the last of the three, Sherston’s Progress, set in an asylum for shell-shocked officers, the author is able to accept these realities and to resolve his emotional turmoil. Through it all, there is always the presence of Sassoon—the fluid, sensitive prose, the fine perceptions of the poet—yet spoken here in the voice of the average man. With charm and humor and quiet understatement, he has managed to articulate the hidden feelings of any sensitive man who in the normal course of his life is suddenly exposed to the nightmare of war.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" by Siegfried Sassoon. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

This autobiographical novel of the eminent English poet, Siegfried Sassoon was first published in 1936. Following on from Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928) and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930), Sassoon’s third and final instalment, Sherston’s Progress, is set in an asylum for shell-shocked officers, and deals with the author’s final acceptance of these realities, and ultimately to resolve his emotional turmoil. Sassoon’s fluid, sensitive prose, the fine perceptions of the poet, is spoken here in the voice of the average man. With charm and humor and quiet understatement, he has managed to articulate the hidden feelings of any sensitive man who in the normal course of his life is suddenly exposed to the nightmare of war. A gripping finale to the trilogy.

First published in 1928, now public domain in the United States and Canada. British army officer on the Western Front during WW1 recalls his youth as a rural gentry lad interested only in horses, cricket matches and fox-hunting. A delightful tale of Victorian England which received the prestigious Huntington Prize.

In a beautifully-rendered memoir of the Great War, the English poet recounts his experiences in the combat zones of France and Flanders. Using his gifts as a distinguished poet, Edmund Blunden masterfully shares memories from his service in combat along with the feelings they invoked in him. After enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the destructive battles of the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele, which he describes as “murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes.” Blunden’s autobiography conveys all the horrors of trench warfare, the struggle to comprehend the violence, and the strangeness of observing the war as both a soldier and a poet. With allusive and powerful prose, he conveys the fortitude and despair of his comrades, including the stunning acts of bravery that won him the Military Cross. Although Blunden left the war physically unscathed, he bore mental scars from it for the rest of his life. Originally published in 1928, Undertones of War features thirty-two of Blunden’s poems inspired by the war. “An extended pastoral elegy in prose. . . . No one disagrees that together with Sassoon’s and Graves’s ‘memoirs’ it is one of the permanent works engendered by memories of the war. . . . It is the sheer literary quality of Undertones of War that remains with a reader.” —Paul Fussell “An established classic.” —D. J. Enright “A masterpiece . . . The best English book of its kind.” —Cyrill Falls

The Great War of 1914–1918 marks a turning point in modern history and culture. This Companion offers critical overviews of the major literary genres and social contexts that define the study of the literatures produced by the First World War. The volume comprises original essays by distinguished scholars of international reputation, who examine the impact of the war on various national literatures, principally Great Britain, Germany, France and the United States, before addressing the way the war affected Modernism, the European avant-garde, film, women's writing, memoirs, and of course the war poets. It concludes by addressing the legacy of the war for twentieth-century literature. The Companion offers readers a chronology of key events and publication dates covering the years leading up to and including the war, and ends with a current bibliography of further reading organised by chapter topics.