Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) was a British poet and author, born in Kent to a Jewish father and English mother. He became known as a writer of satirical anti-war verse during the First World War. Despite having been decorated for bravery, he decided, in 1917, to make a stand against the conduct of the war, and declined to return to duty after a spell of home leave. Instead, he sent a letter to his commanding officer, which was forwarded to the press and read out in Parliament by pacifist leaders. Rather than court-martial him, the military authorities decided that he was unfit for service, and sent him to Craiglockhart Hospital near Edinburgh, where he was treated for war "neurosis" by psychiatrists.

At Craiglockhart, Sassoon met Wilfred Owen, another poet who was to become even more famous. It was thanks to Sassoon that Owen persevered in his ambition to write better poetry. Both men returned to active service in France, but Owen was killed in 1918, whilst Sassoon was wounded again and spent the remainder of the war in Britain. After the war, Sassoon was instrumental in bringing Owen's work to the attention of a wider audience.

In 1930, Sassoon branched out into prose, with "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man", the first volume of a fictionalised autobiography, which was almost immediately accepted as a classic, bringing its author new fame as a humorous writer. In later years, he revisited his youth and early manhood with three volumes of genuine autobiography, which were also widely acclaimed. Towards the end of his long life, he was converted to Roman Catholicism.

The Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship was founded in 2001, and its web site contains further information about Sassoon. The URL is www.sassoonery.demon.co.uk