Sherston's progress

About this book

The capstone of Siegfried Sassoon's masterful George Sherston trilogy, Sherston's Progress, opens with Sherston under the care of neurologist Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, who allows the shell-shocked soldier to sort through his "futile demons" regarding the war still raging around him. After six months convalescing, Sherston rejoins his regiment before being dispatched to Ireland - where he attempts to reclaim some of the bucolic sense of his youth - then on to Palestine. He survives a gunshot to the head when back on the Western Front in France and ends up again with Rivers, who attempts to help Sherston journey through the aftereffects of war's particular horrors toward the beginning of a new life.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Siegfried Sassoon

8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his "Soldier's Declaration" of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital; this resulted in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Sassoon later won…