Janus: Papers of Siegfried Sassoon

Manuscripts/MS Add.9852 contains:
1	Journals
2	Transcripts of journals
3	Sporting notebooks
4	Commonplace books
5	Legal and accounts
6	Poetry notebooks
7	Material relating to prose works
8	Critical writings
9	Correspondence
10	Photographs
11	Printed matter
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More information

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Papers of Siegfried Sassoon

Title	Poetry notebooks
Reference	MS Add.9852/6
Covering Dates	1897–1957 (with gaps)
Extent and Medium	9 notebooks & 29 enclosures

Content and context

This series consists of nine notebooks containing draft poems, covering the period 1897-1957, and twenty nine additional enclosures (now housed in separate envelopes). Many of the notebooks contain both poetry and additional material such as diary entries, prose drafts and notes. Sassoon frequently used the notebooks in both directions, writing poetry from one end, and rotating the notebook to write notes, prose or diary entries in the other.

The earliest notebook in the series, MS Add. 9852/6/1, is an illustrated book of poems written by Sassoon when aged ten, compiled as a birthday gift for his mother. Two notebooks date from the Great War period: MS Add. 9852/6/2 which contains fair copies and corrected drafts of poems dated 1916-1918, neatly transcribed by Sassoon, and MS Add. 9852/6/3 which contains drafts poems and diary entries dated 1917-1918. Some poems in these and other notebooks show evidence of significant revisions before their final publication. An early draft of 'The Dug-Out' in MS Add. 9852/6/2, for example, ends with four additional lines not found in the published version.

The remaining notebooks contain later poetry, dating from c.1920-1957. MS Add. 9852/6/4 contains poems from 1931-1939 along with autobiographical notes on Gosse, Hodgson, and Hardy. MS Add. 9852/6/5 contains poems dated 1924-1930, many of which were published in 'The Heart's Journey'. MS Add. 9852/6/6 contains poems dated 1933-1939 and includes watercolour illustrations. MS Add. 9852/6/7 includes poems dated 1947-1950 and some earlier works, along with notes for 'Meredith' and some text on Wilfred Owen and Charlotte Mew. MS Add. 9852/6/8 contains poems dated 1947-1955, many of which were intended for publication in 'The Tasking'. MS Add. 9852/6/9 contains poems dated 1951-1957 and further 'Meredith' notes.

The notebooks are arranged chronologically, with poems listed by title where provided; for untitled poems the first line is given.

For further poems and diary entries in the collection, see series MS Add. 9852/6/1 (journals); for further prose work, see series MS Add.9852/7-8 (prose and critical writings). For further material relating to Meredith and Hardy, see MS Add.9852/8/3; for Wilfred Owen, see MS Add.9852/8/2 and MS Add.9852/8/4.

Further information

Cambridge University Library also holds further manuscripts of Sassoon's poems, and correspondence about publishing them:

MS Add. 9724, juvenilia, Vigils, and other notebooks (1897-1964); MS Add. 8487, Picture Show (1919): MS, letters to A. T. Bartholomew; MS Add. 8488, Recreations (1923): MS; MS Add. 8491-93, Vigils (1934): MS, transcript, correspondence; MS Add. 8856/330, 'Theme and variations' (1935); MS Add. 8489-90, Rhymed Ruminations (1939): MS, correspondence; MS Add. 8485-86, Emblems of Experience (1951): MS, transcript; MS Add. 9773, Wonted Themes (1953): MS; MS Add. 8538-39, The Tasking (1954): MS, transcript, correspondence.

Manuscripts/MS Add.9852/6 contains:

'The poems by S.L. Sassoon, with illustrations'. Notebook containing poems written and illustrated by Sassoon, when aged ten. An inscription on the cover reads 'The poems by S.L. Sassoon for Mamsy March 28th 1897'. The poems are largely on nature and include extracts taken from works by John Milton and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. They are transcribed in fair hand with occasional annotations or excising and are illustrated with coloured drawings. Contents include:. Title pages with illustration: /1-2r. . Frontispiece illustration for 'Summer': /3r. List of new poems: /3v. Table of contents: /4-5, continuing on /88-89. A list of illustrations: /5. . Poems: . - 'To a spring morn': /6. . - 'To the wild rose': /7. - 'To the nitingale' (sic): /8. - 'Spring': /9-10. - 'Summer': /11. - 'Nature I': /12. - 'The silence of the place' (an extract from 'Monte Cassino, Terra di Lavoro: Birds of Passage, Flight the Fourth' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow): /13. . - 'Autumn I': /14-16. - 'Winter's coming': /17. - 'Winter': /18. . - 'Hunting': /19. . - 'Sylvia': /20. . - 'Westminister Abbey, etc.' (sic): /21. - 'There on a shore, etc.' (incorporating lines from 'Paradise Lost' by John Milton): /22-23. - 'Eve': /24. - 'Bright sunny day': /25. - 'Bright are the flowers': /26. . - 'Hush, the wind it parts the grasses': /27. - 'Poem on a sultry day': /28. - 'The dawn': /29. - 'The thrush': /30-32. . - 'The nightingale' (with two chants): /33-35. - 'The two spirits (land and water)': /36-37. - 'The reapers': /38. - 'The day was fading': /39. - 'Old Mayfield': /40-41. - 'The road': /42. - 'The moon': /43. - 'The wintery dawn': /43. . - 'The solitary reaper': /44. . - 'Tis autumn': /45-46. - 'The story of Peter or, incidents in the life of a cat' (prose): /47-50. . - 'Two sketches': /51-53. . - 'The sun was shineing brightly' (sic): /54-55. - 'Twas still': /57. - 'To a summer eve': /58. . - 'The lark': /59-62. . - 'Dreary and uninhabited': /63. - 'The summer dawn': /64-66. - 'The four winds': /64-71. - 'White against the meadows': /72. . - 'The wintery wind': /73-74. - 'Hush, for the evening cometh on': /75-77. - 'Part III. Sketches, etc' with illustrations entitled 'The summer sea', 'The farm' and 'The fading flower': /77v-78. . - 'The sea of life': /79. . - 'Nature II': /80. . - 'The blast was blowing': /81. - 'A weired night wind was blowing' (sic): /82. - 'To a stormy night': /83. - 'The flight of the swallow': /84. - Two sketches entitled 'On the sea' and 'Life and death': /85. . - 'The passing soul': /86. - Illustrated end page: /87. The foliation is Sassoon's.
1 volume (90 pages); paper.

28 Mar. 1897

'Poems: by Siegfried Sassoon 1916' and 'Poems: 1917-18'.
1 volume (99 pages).

1908–1919

Notebook. Notebook containing poetical drafts (mostly dated 1918), autobiographical notes or prose drafts, with some diary entries. Contents include:. A list of places Sassoon was posted with the 25th Battalion R.W.F. [Royal Welch Fusiliers], Dec. 1917-18 July 1918: /inside front cover. Drafts of poetry: . - Poem beginning 'Birds have their singing time' (poem is excised): /1v. . - 'I Stood with the Dead', 18 June 1918: /2r. - 'Flamingoes' (sic): /3r & 14r-15r. - 'Near Port Said' (excised): /3v. - 'Can I forget ...', 10 Aug. [1918]: /4v. . - Poem beginning 'Soldiers are [heroes?] to the yelping pack' (text is faint), with drawing: /5r. . - Draft lines of poetry beginning 'I've listened since the war began' (excised; text is faint and partially erased): /6r. - 'Hawthornden (to R.S.M.)' [Roderick Sinclair Meiklejohn], St. Hilaire, 6 July 1918: /6v, 7r & 8r. - 'Shadows', 16 April 1918 (text is very faint): /7v. - 'Concert-Party': /10v-13r. - 'His Epitaph (in the old-fashioned artificial manner)': /15v. - 'Civilisation (on the boat)', May 1918: /16v-17r. - Poem beginning 'For the last time I say, War is not glorious', 3 May 1918: /18v. - 'On reading de la Mairs' (sic) poems after the day's work' [Walter de la Mare], 3 June 1918, (excised): /20v-21v. - 'Colin', 12 June 1918 (text is faint and largely illegible): /25v. - 'Requiescant', 4 Aug. 1918: /29r. - 'A Soldier's Complaint', 21 June [1918] (excised): /29v-30r. - 'The Spirit of the Bayonet', 21 June [1918]: /31r. . - Two drafts of 'Tactical Points', 5 June [1918] (excised): /31v-33r. - 'To any Father who thinks War Splendid', 22 June [1918]: /33v-34r. - Poem beginning 'For they are dwellers in the dark', 28 June [1918] (excised): /35v. - Poem beginning 'I read your songs of birds and flowers and tress' (excised): /36r. - 'Pursuit', 19 July [1918] (excised): /44v-45r. - Poem beginning 'I love all things that pass': /47v-48r. - Two drafts of 'Jesus in Heaven', 3 Aug. [1918]: /48v-49v. - 'The Crucifix', 7 Aug. 1918 (excised): /50r. - Draft lines of poetry, some of which were later used in 'The Dug-Out', Lancaster Gate, 9 Aug. 1918: /50v-51r. - Draft of the poem 'Great Men': /51v-53r. - 'B.G.C', June 1918: /54r (notebook was inverted for this entry). Prose and diary entries: . - 'Incidents', Kantara, Egypt, April [1918]: /2v. . - 'On the March', Ludd, Palestine, April 1918: /4r. - Diary entry dated 15 April [1918]: /5v. - 'Concert Party' accompanying a draft of his poem of the same name, 17 Apr. 1918: /8v-13r. - 'On the boat', 3 May 1918: entry begins 'I get angry and scornful against the officers on board': /17v-18r. - 'Night on the Convoy', [May? 1918]: /19r. - Diary entry for 4 May 1918: /19v-20r. - 'Dreams', beginning 'Last night I dreamed that I was leading my company into battle': /22. - 'Demeanour (in the trenches)', 10 June 1918: /24. - 'Amenities': /26r. - 'Premonitions (Duhamel again)' [George Duhamel]: /26v-27r. - 'The other side of the picture', 14 June [1918]: /27v-28v. - 'What the Bishop said (or the Spiritual Equivalent of Campbell's Bayonet Fighting Lecture)', 7 July [1918]: /36v-38r. - 'Confessions (in hospital at the base)', 15 July [1918]: /38r-44r. - 'Diagnosis', 30 July [1918]: /45v-46v. Two lists of earlier poems by Sassoon, one of which gives publication dates (both are excised): /54v. . Signed 'Siegfried Sassoon, 3rd RW Fus - Dec. 1917': /inside back cover. Note that the entries were not written into the notebook in chronological order. The foliation is the archivist's.
1 volume (54 pages); paper.

1917–1918

Poems and 'Autobiographical Notes: mainly in connection with Gosse and Hardy'.
1 volume (31 pages); paper.

1920–1939

'The Heart's Journey'. Notebook comprising poetical drafts and revised fair copies of poems, many of which were published in 'The Heart's Journey' (London, 1927). Some pages of the notebook have been removed [by Sassoon]. Contents include:. Title page, 'The Heart's Journey': /1r. Opening quotations from George Meredith and William Wordsworth: /1v-2r. Poems:. - 'For an Album', poem beginning 'Turn out the lamp; and how the room goes dark', 18 Feb. 1927: /3r. - 'The Fair Son of an Ever-Useful Spring', poem beginning 'If I could stand in bygone-centuried shoes', 30 Jan. 1924: /4r. - Fair copy of a poem beginning 'What you are I cannot say': /5r. - 'I', excised poem beginning 'I was, I am, and I shall be': / 6r. - 'Farewell to a Room', 22 Nov. 1925 and reworked on 3 Jan. 1926 (the draft has an additional verse to the published version): /7r. - 'In Memory (W.H.R.R.)', poem beginning 'What face revisits me to-night?', 17 Jan. 1926, with a rewritten version dated 29 Nov. 1930: /7v-8r. - 'Unison', poem beginning 'When selfhood can discern no comfort for its cares', 23 Nov. 1926, with a second, excised draft dated 21 Jan. 1926: /8v-9r. - 'To an 18th Century Poet', 25 Jan. 1926: /10r. - 'In Time of Conflict', with alternative, excised titles of 'War & Peace' and 'Night & Day'; poem begins, 'It has been told and shall be told again', 8 Feb. 1926: /11r. - 'The Power and the Glory', 12 Dec. 1925: /12r. - 'From a Fugue by Bach' (revised fair copy with an additional verse to the published version; excised), 4 Jan. 1926: /13r. - 'In Winter', poem beginning 'Sing bravely in my heart, you patient birds', 11 Jan. 1926: /14r. - Poem beginning 'As I was walking in the gardens': /14v. - 'Poems & Ballads', poem beginning 'If one should ask to-day what sunshine means for me', 13 Apr. 1926: /15r. - Poem beginning 'A Flower has opened in my heart', 8 Feb. 1927: /15v. - 'The Wisdom of the World', 4 Sep. 1926: /16r. - 'Death and Estrangement', poem beginning 'Silence and Solitude are my companions' (excised), 6 Feb. 1927: /16r. - Poem beginning 'What, then, is this that I come to at end of so many a day?', 7 Dec. 1926: /16v. Note: the foliation is the archivist's.
1 volume (16 pages); paper; green notebook with Sassoon's monogram on the cover..

1924–1930

'Poems' and 'Notes'.
1 volume (57 pages); paper.

1933–1939

Poems and 'Meredith' notes.
1 volume (76 pages); paper.

1933–1950

'Three Poems - The Tasking'.
1 volume (11 pages); paper; On handmade paper, with hardback cover..

1947–1955

'The Tasking', 'Unwonted Themes' and 'Meredith Biographical References etc.'.
1 volume (77 pages).

1947–1957