George Simmers today reports on the happy fact that Siegfried Sassoon's papers have been saved for the nation. In the process, he reserves some well-aimed barbs for Andrew Motion (whose grasp of Great War history is not entirely secure) and Michael Morpurgo (who is credited by George with a love of 'grand simplicities'). Morpurgo's latest meanderings on the 'futility' of the War can be found here.
I have blogged previously that the University of Exeter holds twenty letters from Sassoon to Charles Causley. I am keen to trace the other side of the correspondence: letters from Causley to Sassoon. They do not seem to be among the papers bought by Cambridge, or any of the other significant Sassoon archives. If you know of their whereabouts, please get in touch.
That is a very balanced piece by George Simmers and it was also interesting to see Motion arguing that SS was better as a prose writer than a poet (my view too). What no one has really indicated is what the real value of this very highly-priced archive is. How much of it has been already used? Even the Imperial War Museum archive, which has long been freely available, has not been exhausted by recent biographers I found this year. But, yes, Cambridge is easier to get to than Austin, Texas for British scholars so jolly good.
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