1920

54 Tufton Street

[13] January 1920

Dear Blunden, I gave your poem to Turner, and hope the Mercury will print it.1 If you can send your MSS to W. J. T., he will pass it on to Messrs Bells readers, and I think they will agree to publish2 I am starting next Sunday, from Plymouth,3 and am so rushed this week that Oxford was impossible. Needless to say Im very disappointed at missing you and Robert and Masefield. Best of luck. In haste, Yours ever, SS
1. 2. 3. The Gleaning, London Mercury, July 1920. George Bell & Son did not publish any of Blundens work. Sassoon sailed from Plymouth for the United States in late January 1920. His lecture tour continued until August 1920, which explains this gap in the correspondence. See Siegfrieds Journey (London: Faber & Faber, 1945), pp. 167224.

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18 September 1920

54 Tufton Street

My dear Blunden, So glad to hear the book1 is going so well. I have transmitted copies to W. B. Yeats,2 also to the late Prime Minister.3 You can now take your own time about it, as your reputation is nicely inaugurated. I cant tell you how much I admire such poems as Almswomen, Perch-Fishing, The Pike, and The Veteran. But for Gods sake dont let them make you into a professional Georgian. Your best poems have a spontaneity which is priceless. Now, as to the slip of paper enclosed, please understand that it is not from me, but from an admirer of your work who insists on remaining anonymous for the present.4 This admirable individual asked me if I knew of any deserving young, impecunious poets, and this is the result. Further assistance is available; but you must on no account say anything about it to anyone except the faithful Mary.5 And I want you to send me the details of what you have earned by writing this year. I stated that you were getting 5 a week from The Athenaeum.6
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Selected Letters of Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 1

Provided your income doesnt exceed 400, I think I can get you another 25 later on in the year. (Of course, the royalties on The Waggoner and the Tilney stuff7 will count as part of next years income). Forgive all this commercialism. Yours ever, SS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The Waggoner (1920). The Silver Bird of Herndyke Mill in that volume is dedicated to Sassoon. Yeats (18651939), the Nobel-Prize-winning Irish poet and playwright whom Sassoon had met in New York earlier in the year when they were joint guests of honor at the Poetry Society of Americas annual dinner. Herbert Henry Asquith (18521928), prime minister from 1908 to 1916. The first of Eddie Marshs benefactions to Blunden. See Blundens account in Eddie Marsh: Sketches for a Composite Literary Portrait, compiled by Christopher Hassall and Denis Mathews (London: Lund Humphries, 1953), p. 26. Blundens wife. The Athenaeum (18181921), literary review, which Blunden joined in May 1920. The Appreciation of Literary Prose, being One of the Special Courses of the Art of Life (1921). One of six books in F. C. Tilneys course.

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1920 Government Allowance to July and Athenaeum [I omit college fees Other earnings MayAugust AugustSeptember *probable till December 31 * s 250 48 10 60 368 d

17 Hoveden Road, Cricklewood NW21

19 September 1920

Dear SS, If only for variety I wont apologise for the pressure of work which kept my thanks till now. I wanted to tell you that E. M.2 also sent me a cheque from an anonymous friend of the poets, and consequently it seems a shame to take the money. I wont say this, but thank you most heartily for your efforts on our account. You must tell me the name of my benefactor: or is it impossible? Give [ ] my real gratitude anyway. But once again I must make an awkward bow, this time for your sending me to the luminaries you named. I must show you all the subsequent poems shortly: perhaps you would like to have a MS copy, though God knows I tremble to add to your collection of papers, if you too tremble at the idea, please say. You ask about the money. To put the acquittance roll in its briefest, the position is:-

I am in uncertainty as to the details of the 60: but from the Mercury, Nation, Today, News, Herald and perhaps Athenaeum extras, so much at least will come along.

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With the proceeds from Clare3 our share we shall make up 400. There must have been other sums in, too, which dont appear in my passbook as I cashed the cheques direct. Excuse my feebleness. My head is at its worst after rather a lot of work. Marys love Yours very sincerely, Edmund Blunden
1. 2. Blunden moved to this London address after he left Oxford. Graves had asked Marsh to keep an eye on the Blundens as a sacred charge in June 1920. See R. Graves, In Broken Images, Selected Letters of Robert Graves 19141946, ed. P. OPrey (London: Hutchinson, 1982), p. 119. With Alan Porter, Blunden had edited John Clare: Poems Chiefly from Manuscript 1920).

3.

17 Hovden Road, Cricklewood NW21

26 November 1920

Dear SS, I thought youd like Clare but if you dont tell me a lie about it, say he outclasses Keats, Shelley &c as the sun the moon and I shall die happy. The book is really premature, for I went to Northampton for a few days and have returned laden with unpublished poems &c that are beyond rubies. I notice one flaw in Clare he has no reference to cricket though youll see a football sidelight. I should like to have seen what Clare would have written in a hop garden and the knaves that dwell therein (the pious inhabitants of Matfield are excepted from this wholesale defamation). I hope you are well and in singing moods (vide J.C., p. 162). Yours very sincerely, E. Blunden My poetry shall follow shortly unless you revolt.
1. This letter was laid into Sassoons copy of John Clare: Poems Chiefly from Manuscript.

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15 December 1920 London WC2

The Athenaeum, 10 Adelphi Terrace

My dear Protagonist, If you have judged me a moral wreck as not having answered before, recant. I was away from my lodgings through the last week until yesterday evening: and the surprise of Owens magnificent poem as it left his hands was delayed. I cant say how much I rejoiced, and yet, its a bitter thing to see how the mere paper and ink survive the man. A column was cramping, I had much more to say.1 In the current Times Lit is a dreadful brief notice of Owen,2 with a puerile accusation that he mis-rhymes. So you see your professional critic did not even tumble to the fact of the reasoned invention. May he tumble into a super crump-

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Selected Letters of Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden: Volume 1

hole and there remain. Murry3 has complained to the Times about this scarcely conceivable insolence, or ignorance. My friend Liveing,4 author of Attack, is coming up this week-end. Could you, and would you, meet the pair of us? I should rejoice and Liveing is an excellent soul whom you could encourage. He needs encouragement, as since his book he has had little or no appreciation. I write in trembling. You must now think better of your calligraphy, for I have given up the unequal struggle as you see. I am not forgetful that I owe you some of my own MSS and I have a collection of new verse which must come under your eye soon. Yours ever sincerely, Edmund Blunden
1. 2. 3. 4. The Real War, Blundens review of Poems by Wilfred Owen, appeared in the Athenaeum on 10 December 1920. Unsigned notice of Poems by Wilfred Owen, Times Literary Supplement (hereafter TLS) (16 December 1920). A crump hole was a bomb crater. J. Middleton Murry (18891957), Christs Hospital old boy, then editor of the Athenaeum. E. G. D. Liveing, Attack: An Infantry Subalterns Impressions of July 1st 1916 (1918).

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I can get you another 25 when you need it urgently.
1. 2.

54 Tufton Street

22 December [1920]

Dear B, Alas, Im just off to Scarboro1 for three days, but shall be back on Tuesday. I am sorry to miss Liveing, whose war-book I admire very much. W. J. Turner says let him know if you can bring Liveing here on Saturday evening. Curse the Times. Im afraid it will affect the success of the book. Im glad Murry has written. Am sending a few chocolates for you and Mary B. to suck during the festive season. With my love to her and the hope of the house.2 Yours, SS

The seaside resort of Scarborough, to visit the Sitwells Edith, Osbert (18921969), and Sacheverell (18971988). Their daughter, Clare Blunden, was born 29 October 1920.