Description
Object description
Looseleaf ms journal (205pp) and bound ts transcript (78pp) principally covering the service of an Old Etonian as a senior subaltern and company commander in the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards (1st Guards Brigade, Guards Division) on the Western Front, 27 April – 2 October 1916 and 12 April – June 1917, with a useful chronicle of preparations for the Somme Offensive and of conditions in the front line and outstanding, graphic, descriptions of the battles of Flers Courcelette and Morval, including an extremely detailed account of the capture of Lesboeufs (September 1916), as well as a vivid portrayal of the devastation of the Somme sector observed by him on his return to his battalion in the spring of 1917 after extended sick leave and prior to being invalided home again, with trench fever; together with 32 ms letters to his family dated April – September 1915, March – December 1916 and May – June 1917 (with a partial ts transcript, 34pp, and ts notes (4pp) by his daughter), containing much of the strong descriptive detail included in his journal and useful insight into regimental customs, his role as an officer and his philosophy generally, as well as references to the loss of close friends; also a notebook containing newspaper reviews of his book 'Iron Times with the Guards' (London, 1918), together with an ms autograph letter dated March 1918 from the publisher John Murray about the memoir and 2 further ms letters.
Content description
Looseleaf ms journal (205pp) and bound ts transcript (78pp) principally covering the service of an Old Etonian as a senior subaltern and company commander in the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards (1st Guards Brigade, Guards Division) on the Western Front, 27 April – 2 October 1916 and 12 April – June 1917, with a useful chronicle of preparations for the Somme Offensive and of conditions in the front line and outstanding, graphic, descriptions of the battles of Flers Courcelette and Morval, including an extremely detailed account of the capture of Lesboeufs (September 1916), as well as a vivid portrayal of the devastation of the Somme sector observed by him on his return to his battalion in the spring of 1917 after extended sick leave and prior to being invalided home again, with trench fever; together with 32 ms letters to his family dated April – September 1915, March – December 1916 and May – June 1917 (with a partial ts transcript, 34pp, and ts notes (4pp) by his daughter), containing much of the strong descriptive detail included in his journal and useful insight into regimental customs, his role as an officer and his philosophy generally, as well as references to the loss of close friends; also a notebook containing newspaper reviews of his book 'Iron Times with the Guards' (London, 1918), together with an ms autograph letter dated March 1918 from the publisher John Murray about the memoir and 2 further ms letters.
History note
Cataloguer AC