First American edition of the three memoirs in one. 8vo., original orange cloth, blocked in black and gilt, top edge stained red, dust jacket. New York, Doubleday Doran. 1937
Dust jacket quite neatly reinforced at head and foot of spine: one large faint stain to the front board. Inscribed by Sassoon to Beryl and Eileen Hunter "For their collection of SS editions" and with the further manuscript note, referring to "this Americanism in book production."
An attractive souvenir of an interesting friendship. The sisters Beryl and Eileen Hunter were gardeners on Stephen Tennant's Wilsford estate, but were clearly well-bred gels, who in their letters used the language of the dorm rather than the potting shed - things were "rotten", "top-hole" "topping" or "beastly". They played an important role as go-betweens during the dying years of the love affair between the impossibly louche Tennant and Sassoon. For Sassoon the affair was the painful sum of all his life's paradoxes, and the help of this horsey, intelligent, well read, well intentioned and non judgmental pair went a long way to easing the pain of those difficult years. Jean Wilson Wilson devotes a very interesting three pages to their friendship, and quotes Sassoon as writing "What I should have done without their help, I can't imagine."
