Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
The lightly fictionalised memoir of an officer's journey from eager patriotism through the Somme to open protest against the war.
The Verdict
Siegfried Sassoon won a Military Cross for bravery, then threw it in a river and publicly refused to keep fighting — and this is the book at the centre of that turn. The second volume of his lightly fictionalised memoirs follows 'George Sherston' from eager young officer into the Somme and toward the act of conscience that nearly had him court-martialled, before he was packed off to a psychiatric hospital instead. Written by one of the war's finest poets, it is plainspoken where his verse is sharp, and all the more moving for it.
Who Should Read It
Read it if you want
- The making of a soldier's public protest
- The Somme through a poet-officer's eyes
- Conscience set against duty
- A companion to Graves and to Regeneration
Look elsewhere if you want
- A factual, non-fictionalised account
- The whole war or its strategy
- Sassoon's poetry instead
Why We Rated It 4.5
Historical Context
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) is the second book of Sassoon's semi-autobiographical George Sherston trilogy. It covers his Western Front service and his 1917 public declaration against the war's continuation, after which he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital rather than court-martialled — events later fictionalised in Pat Barker's Regeneration.
Events Covered
Editions & Reading Notes
Read It Alongside
Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-0143107163
Read This Against
The same events seen from a different vantage point. The fullest understanding often lives in the space between accounts that don't agree.
Other Books About the Same Events
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is the narrator the same as Sassoon?
- Essentially — 'George Sherston' is a lightly fictionalised version of Sassoon himself, with some details altered.
- How does it connect to Regeneration?
- Sassoon's protest and his stay at Craiglockhart, central here, are dramatised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration.