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Notebook comprising poetical drafts together with notes on George Meredith, diary entries, and some text relating to Wilfred Owen and Charlotte Mew. The notebook was used from both ends; it largely contains poetical drafts until page 51, after which entries continue from the back page, comprising the notes on Meredith and additional material.
Quotation from Byron's 'Don Juan': /inside front cover.
Drafts of poems:
- Two drafts of 'Playmates', 3 Feb. 1950: /1r.
- 'Euphrasy', 6 Feb. 1950: /1v.
- 'Release', 7 Feb. 1950: /1v.
- 'A Plea for Less Information' (excised), preceded by a quotation from Ovid on the advantage of not knowing too much: /2r.
- 'Quite myself', four-line poem, 22 Oct. 1950: /2r.
- 'Against Artiface', 17 Jan. 1950: /2v.
- 'The Consolers', 28 Jan. 1950: /2v.
- 'Unguided', 27 Aug. 1933 (with excised titles 'Prophetic Outlook' and 'Clueless'): /3r.
- 'Abdication', 22 Apr. 1947 (partly erased): /3r.
- 'Wren and Man', 29 Jan. 1950: /3v.
- 'An Afterthought', 9 Feb. 1950: /3v.
- 'The Soloist', 14 Feb. 1950 and 9 Oct. 1950: /3v.
- 'Existent Good' (excised), 10 Dec. 1950: /4r.
- 'Non-Intervention', 12 Dec. 1950, followed by an extract of poetry from George Meredith: /4r.
- 'A Denial', 4 Jan. 1950: /4v.
- 'Property Prophesy', 27 Jan. 1950: /4v.
- 'Official Status' (a poem on being appointed a CBE): /4v.
- 'Orbit' (four-line poem), 28 Jan. 1950: /4v.
- 'A Problem' (four-line poem), 25 Feb. 1950: /4v.
- Five-line poem beginning 'If only our dreams were more serious', Oct. 1950: /4v.
- 'On Reading my Collected Poems': /5r.
- 'An Interruption' (four-line poem): /5r.
- 'A Word with a Future', Mar. 1925: /5r.
- 'Elsewhere', 2 Feb. 1950: /5v.
- 'A Dream', 24 Feb. 1950: /5v.
- Excised drafts of a poem with the alternate titles of 'Rudimentary Religion' and 'Simple Sermon', dated Aug. 1947-Nov. 1948 and Feb. 1949: /6r.
- 'Valediction', 9 Apr. 1947: /6v.
- 'The Forward View', 3 Oct. 1932: /6v.
- 'Philosophy to Fail' or 'In Time of Decivilisation', 14 Aug. 1947: /7r.
- Drafts of a poem marked 'For de la Mare Tribute Volume' beginning 'News came that he'd been born in 1873', 16 Aug. 1947: /7v-8r.
- Poem beginning 'An August midnight; not much stirring': /8v.
- Poem which has been erased; now illegible except for corrections in pen, and ending with the words 'but tomorrow will come': /9r.
- 'Innovations', 18 Aug. 1947 (with earlier excised title 'Vicissitudes'), beginning 'One foggy evening, dining quietly at his club': /9v.
- 'A Prediction', 1 Apr. 1933: /9v.
- 'An Optimist', 20 Aug. 1947: /10r.
- 'Essential Humanity', 13 Nov. 1948: /10v.
- 'After Talking to a Young Poet' (excised), 10 Nov. 1948: /11r.
- 'Spectators', preceded by a poem which has been erased and is illegible: /11v.
- 'Solitude at Sixty', 1947: /12r.
- 'Shadow & Substance': /12v.
- Poem beginning 'I and my Shadow, In sunshine weather, Have walked together': /13r.
- 'Whence?' (four-line poem): /13v.
- 'Befriending Star', 18 Oct. 1950: /13v.
- 'Heavenless': /14r.
- 'A Stay-at-Home', 11 Feb. 1950: /14r.
- A second poem named 'Innovations', 7 Sep. 1947, beginning 'An easy-going pre-historic man complained': /14v (see also /9v).
- 'The Comforter', 19 Oct. 1950: /14v.
- 'A Plain Man', 6 Sep. 1947: /15r.
- 'A Survivor' (with excised title 'Another Self'), 4 Feb. 1950: /15v.
- 'Defiance to Life', 13 Sep. 1947: /16r.
- Poem beginning 'Against the background of the times we suffer': /16v.
- Poem which has been erased and is now illegible except for corrections in pen, 28 Sep. 1947: /17r.
- 'Visual Devisings', 14 Dec. 1947 and reworked on 23 Nov. 1948: /17v.
- 'Suggested Solution (for Human Predicament)' with additions made on 14 Jan. 1948: /17v and 18r.
- Quotations from two poems by Walter de la Mare: /17v.
- 'A Reassurance', 14 Oct. 1950: /18r.
- 'The Child Denied', 25 Dec. 1947, preceded by a quotation from Charlotte Mew: /19r.
- Lists by Sassoon of his own poetry: they include lists entitled 'War-time Verse', 'Emblems of Experience (Personal Moralisings)', 'Spiritual Poems', 'Unpublished Verse: 1941-48', and 'Thirty-Six Poems', with some titles of poems accompanied by a note on the year and place of publication: /19v-20r.
Drafts of poems, continued:
- 'A Confederacy with Oblivion', 18 Jan. 1948: /20v.
- 'A Leader', 19 Jan. 1948: /21r.
- 'Lack of Foresight' (with excised title 'Getting it Wrong'), 20 Jan. 1948: /21v.
- Poem beginning 'Sufficient satisfaction man will find, By landing on the Moon ', 16 Oct. 1950: /21v.
- 'The Pioneer', poem beginning 'Landing on Mars, man found the climate good', 16 Oct. 1950: /22r.
- 'World Revolution', 31 Jan. 1948: /22r.
- 'A Hint' (initially entitled 'A Hint to Communistic Thinkers'), five-line poem, 2 Mar. 1948: /22r.
- 'Old-Fashioned Weather' (initially entitled 'Traditional Weather'), 20 Feb. 1948: /22v.
- 'The Lost Things', 28 Feb. 1948: /23r.
- 'The Deceiver' (with excised titles 'The Choice', 'Undeceived' and 'An Undesirable Acquaintance'), 20 Oct. 1950: /22v and 23r.
- 'Praise Persistent', with a note that the poem contained phrases borrowed from Thomas Hardy, 8 Mar. 1948: /23v.
- 'International Relations': /24v.
- Two drafts of 'An Absentee' (initially entitled 'Change of Heart'), one is excised, 14 Mar. 1948: /25r.
- 'A Memory of Edward Grey': /26r, with another draft of the poem, now entitled 'A Fallodon Memory', 16-20 Mar. 1948: /27r. The poems are accompanied by prose notes on Lord Edward Grey of Fallodon, 15 Mar. 1948:/25v, notes on a dream about him, 16 Mar. 1948, and recollections of a stay at Fallodon on 16-29 Aug. 1928: /26r.
- 'Mind Alchemy', 2 Nov. 1948: /27v.
- 'On Hearing Some Sonatas', 2 Apr. 1948: /27v.
- 'Simpleton Philosophy', 3 Apr. 1948: /28r.
- Drafts of a poem beginning 'After short sleep unwillingly awake', 21 Nov. 1948: /28v.
- 'The Dilapidated Vehicle': /30v.
- 'Ultimate Values', 15 Dec. 1948: /31r.
- Poem beginning 'Suppose this revelation, this release', 3-4 Mar. 1949, with a note by Sassoon on his reasons for writing: /31v.
- 'Resurrection', 3-6 Mar. 1949: /32r-32v.
- 'Out of Date' (with initial titles of 'Defences' and 'To a Contemporary'): /33v.
- 'A Regret', 19 Mar. 1949: /33v.
- Poem beginning 'I told my brain forget, and up the woodland walked': /34r.
- 'Survivors', 7 Apr. 1949: /34v.
- 'Unemployed', 14 Jan. 1950, with an accompanying note by Sassoon on his poetic impulse and personal character: /35r.
- 'An Asking' (initially entitled 'Creature to Creator'), drafts dated 27 May and 23 Dec. 1949, with a note relating to the origin of the mind and soul: /36v-37r.
- 'The Engine', 27 Oct. 1949: /37v.
- 'Not Guilty', 12 Feb. 1950, accompanied by a prose entry beginning 'If only someone would tell me whether these heavy moralisings in verse are any good!': /38r.
- Two drafts of 'Past or Present?' with a related note, 31 Oct.-1 Nov. 1949: /38v-39r.
- Five lines of excised verse, beginning 'A man with a pen; the man who is me': /39v.
- 'A Reunion' (poem about Thomas Hardy), 2 Nov. 1949: /39v.
- Poem beginning 'Dear Decade, the fate of mankind, so they say', 1 Jan. 1950: /40r.
- Two drafts of 'The Message', 3 Nov. 1949: /40v.
- 'Antecedents' (initially entitled 'Oriental Extraction'), 12 Jan. 1950: /41r.
- 'To an Intellectualist' (excised), 24 Dec. 1949: /41v.
- 'Distant Relations', 25 Dec. 1949: /41v.
- 'The Unproven': /27 Dec. 1949: /42v and 'Redemption', 29 Dec. 1949: /43r, with an accompanying note beginning 'I suppose these two poems will be considered childish by contemporary literary fashion. Yet they satisfy me': /42r.
- 'An Incident in Literary History', beginning 'Sassoon and Owen names that found their niche, In literary history', 8 Jan. 1950: /43v.
- 'To a Materialist', 4 Jan. 1950, with a related note on spiritualism and materialism: /44r.
- 'Modern Hymn', 21 Jan. 1950: /44r.
- 'Expectation of Life', 10 Jan. 1950 with a note 'In the Dumps': /44v.
- 'Ownership', 15 Jan. 1950: /45v.
- 'A Collector', 19 Jan. 1950: /46r.
- 'An Admission', 20 Jan. 1950: /46r.
- Two drafts of 'Two Worlds', 22 Jan. 1950: /46v.
- 'As Far as One Can See', 23 Jan. 1950: /47r.
- 'The Unaccepted', 24 Jan. 1950: /47v.
- 'Rewardment', 24 Oct. 1950, preceded by a note beginning 'I often ask myself what I think I am doing by putting all these philosophic moralizings into little scraps of verse': /48r.
- 'Non-Conductive', 30 Jan. 1950: /48v.
- Draft of the poem later named 'The Inventory', beginning 'Possessed by its possessions, can the mind - ': /48v.
- 'Prelude to a Sequence' (excised), 1 Feb. 1950: /49r.
- 'A Post-Mortem', 16 Feb. 1950: /49r.
- 'Silly stuff' (excised): /49r.
- 'Affirmation', 2 Feb. 1950: /49v.
- 'Ditty of Old Bones', 10 Oct. 1950: /49v.
- 'Duality', 26 Oct. 1950: /50v.
- 'The Present Writer', 9 Nov. 1950: /51r.
Entries then continue from the back of the notebook:
'Meredith Notes': /76r-51v (listed in order starting from the back page). These include:
- A list of the qualities of a fine book as defined by Walter de la Mare: /76v.
- A note on Meredith sales figures: /76r.
- 'Notes on the Novels': /75v.
- Extract transcribed from an essay by Orlo Williams on 'The Egoist': /74v.
- Note on 'One of our Conquerors': /73v.
- 'Rhoda Fleming' notes: /73r-72v.
- 'Note on the Early Novels': /72r-71v.
- 'Farina' notes: /71r.
- 'Shagpat' notes: /70v.
- 'Feverel' notes: /69v.
- 'Sandra Belloni' notes: /68v.
- 'Modern Love' notes: /67v-68r.
- Transcript of a letter from Meredith to Miss Katherine Vulliamy on the eve of her wedding, dated 6 June 1864, with a note by Sassoon that the letter was forwarded to him in Nov. 1948: /67r-66v.
- Notes on the introduction to Sassoon's book on Meredith: /66r, 65r and 52r-51v.
- 'Vittoria' notes: /65v.
- A list of a selection of poems by Meredith, in chronological order: /64v.
- Notes and prose drafts for an article on Meredith for 'Occident'; Sassoon states that it was 'written for a magazine which never printed it or returned my MS!' Parts of the draft are divided into sections 1-3: /64r-56v.
- Notes for a talk on Meredith: /55v
Prose entries on other subjects:
- On the poetry of Charlotte Mew, 22 Feb. 1948: /24r.
- Notes on Wilfred Owen, which appear to have been intended for a talk on Owen for the BBC: 55r-54v.
- Prose notes mentioning H.G. W[ells] and Walter de la Mare: /54r.
Diary-type entries:
- These include entries on a 'curiously clear dream' involving Walter de la Mare, 15 Mar. 1948: /24v; on re-reading the New Years' dance chapter of George Elliot's 'Silas Marner': /29r; meditations on his attitude to life 'at nearly 62', 7 June 1948: /29r; entries for 8-9 June 1948 on his reasons for writing and his hope to write a final volume of autobiography: /29v; a descriptive account entitled 'Getting up Early', 16 May [1949]: /35v; an entry dated 7 June 1949: /36r; an entry on a dream he had about going on active service again, 23 June 1949: /37r; thoughts on T.H.'s [Thomas Hardy's] conception of the 'Imminent Will or Prime Cause': /42r; and an entry on Wilfred Owen in which Sassoon goes on to discuss which poets had helped him technically, 30 Jan. 1950: /45r.
- Entries concerning meetings with de la Mare, dated 24 Nov. 1948 (while at Park Royal Hospital, in which Sassoon describes their discussion on Ralph Hodgson), 26 Nov. 1948, and 3 June 1949 (on a visit following de la Mare's heart attack): /24r-25r.
N.B. Three enclosures are to be found in separate envelopes. The foliation is the archivist's.
For further 'Meredith' notes, see also MS Add.9852/6/9.
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