Fatigued, tranquillizing himself with strychnine tonic to calm his nerves, and convalescing at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight with other shell-shock victims, Graves steadied himself by putting together his third volume of poetry that would become Fairies and Fusiliers.
Published by William Heinemann in England and Alfred A. Knopf in New York, poems such as ‘The Assault Heroic’, ‘When I am Killed’, and ‘A Dead Boche’ evoke his war experiences and his state of mind.
Initially dedicated to Siegfried Sassoon, he changed the dedication to his regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers. This is the first London edition of 1917.