An aesthete in the trenches

{ "b" : "Siegfried Sassoon: A Biography," , "cite" : "by Max Egremont, Picador, £36.50."}

{ "b" : "Siegfried Sassoon: A Biography," , "cite" : "by Max Egremont, Picador, £36.50."}

From an early age, Siegfried Sassoon knew what it was that set him apart from others: his Jewishness, his homosexuality and his delicacy. As a boarding pupil at Marlborough College, a moderately liberal and enlightened school, his family later maintained Sassoon had carried a knuckle-duster to protect himself against anti-Semitic attacks.

At the same time his family name ...