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First edition, deluxe large paper issue. One of 300 copies signed by Sassoon, this copy issued out of series. Full publisher's blue buckram, lettered gilt to the spine. A near fine copy, spine slightly faded.

FIRST EDITIONS. 1st printings. Three volumes. 8vo. (7.5 X 5 Inches). Bright and clean copies throughout in fine recent leather bindings of full dark blue morocco, the spines with five raised bands, compartments ruled, decorated and lettered in gilt. Single ruled gilt border on boards. All edges gilt. Sassoon's masterpiece of autobiographical fiction. One of the great literary works of the twentieth century. ---The first volume was published anonymously in an edition of just 1500 copies and is scarce. A limited edition, signed by Sassoon, was published later in 1928 and matching limited and signed volumes were issued alongside the publication of the two other volumes.

3 vols., 8vo., First Edition thus, on laid paper, free endpapers lightly browned as often; original blue buckram, gilt backs, gilt tops, uncut, backstrips lightly sunned (but all gilt wholly bright and legible), a very good, bright, clean set. EDITIONS LIMITED TO 260/750/300 NUMBERED COPIES RESPECTIVELY, ALL SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR (THESE COPIES NOS. 181, 201, 242 RESPECTIVELY). Sassoon's classic fictional autobiographical trilogy comprises: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928), Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) and Sherston's Progress (1936). COMPLETE SETS ARE VERY SCARCE, ESPECIALLY IN THIS CONDITION. Keynes, A30b, A33b, A40b respectively.

Signed limited editions, each signed by the author, numbered 249 of 260, 166 of 750, and 91 of 300 copies respectively. The signed limited edition of Fox-Hunting Man, issued one month after the trade edition, "was an afterthought, made when the success of the ordinary edition was assured and the identity of the author known" (Keynes). The remaining titles were issued in both formats simultaneously. The Sherston trilogy is Sassoon's lightly fictionalized autobiography, detailing his lonely youth, his idle years as a country gentleman, and his military service on the Western Front. Immediately successful, the work "was awarded the Hawthornden and James Tait Black memorial prizes, and was quickly accepted as a classic of its kind - an elegy for a way of life which had gone forever" (ODNB). "Like Tolstoy's War and Peace, which he was also reading while he wrote his own book, it is the combination of factual detail and direct personal experience vividly rendered that makes Infantry Officer a convincing and compelling picture of war. As he told Ottoline [Morrell], he wanted to give 'a really truthful inner-narrative'. He believed that this had not yet been achieved by an English writer, apart from Blunden" (Wilson, p. 238). Sassoon considered the final instalment, Sherston's Progress, his best. It describes his recovery and return to the war after being treated by Dr W. H. R. Rivers at Craiglockhart War Hospital. Keynes A30b, A33b, A40b. Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey from the Trenches, 2003. Three works, octavo. Printed on large handmade paper. Original blue buckram, spines lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, other edges uncut. All housed in a custom blue cloth folding box. Cloth notably brighter than usual, gentle fading mostly limited to spines, one corner bumped, inner hinges of first work split but firm, occasional spot and browning to free endpapers, otherwise clean. A near-fine set.