Robert Graves—Siegfried Sassoon | An unimprovable pair of association copies

Robert Graves—Siegfried Sassoon

An unimprovable pair of WW1 poetry association copies, comprising:

i. Robert Graves. Over the Brazier. London: Poetry Bookshop, 1916. First edition, first impression, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO SIEGFRIED SASSOON ("SS from RG, May 6, 1916", on inside of front wrapper), 8vo, original wrappers, bookplate of Sassoon, light spotting

ii. Siegfried Sassoon. The Old Huntsman. London: Heinemann, 1917. First edition, first impression, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO ROBERT GRAVES ("R.G. from S.S. May 1917"), 8vo, bookplate of Graves, original boards, lacking dust-jacket, binding somewhat soiled 

GRAVES' AND SASSOON'S FIRST COLLECTIONS OF WAR POETRY, EACH RECIPROCALLY INSCRIBED. This pair of copies stands as a powerful emblem of the longstanding, if at times complex, friendship between Sassoon and Graves. As Graves recounts in his 1929 wartime autobiography (for which see lot 341), the two poets more or less immediately bonded over their literary interests whilst serving together in France in the Royal Welch Fusiliers:

"At this point I was getting my first book of poems, Over the Brazier, ready for the press; I had one or two drafts in my pocket-book and showed them to Siegfried. He told me they were too realistic and that war should not be written about in a realistic way. In return he showed me some of his own poems. One of them began: 'Return to greet me, colours that were my joy | Not in the woeful crimson of men slain...' [the opening lines of "To Victory", later printed in The Old Huntsman] This was before Siegfried had been in the trenches. I told him, in my old-soldier manner, that he would soon change his style." (Good-bye to All That, p. 224).

Sassoon's copy of Over the Brazier evidently stayed in his possession all his life, as it contains the S.S. monogram label affixed to all copies featured in the posthumous auction of his books by Christie's in 1975. Graves' copy of The Old Huntsman, however, appears to have been gifted at some point to an Oxford acquaintance, Godfrey Elton. Now rightly united, these two copies represent the greatest imaginable pair of WW1 poetry books.