Memoirs Of a Fox-Hunting Man is the first of three fictionalized memoirs written by Sassoon detailing his life prior to, during, and following the First World War. George Sherston is an orphan who is adopted and raised by his spinster aunt. His childhood, while somewhat lonely and blighted by his own shyness, is spent in luxurious surroundings in the South of England, and he is somewhat spoiled by his aunt Evelyn, to whom he means everything in the world. Tom Dixon, his aunt’s groom, forges a close friendship with the boy. He convinces Evelyn to allow George to ride a horse, hoping to transform him into a respectable gentleman.

Kent, the county in which George grows up, is famous for its fox hunting, and so once he is riding a horse, George is soon taken by Dixon to a hunt happening nearby, where he meets his future friend Denis Milden. George is impressed by the activity of the hunt, the audacious way in which the hunters ride their animals and the liveliness of the dogs. He decides that when he grows older, he too will be a fox hunter.

George goes away to school, where he does reasonably well. He is introduced to cricket one summer by Dixon, and though at first he suffers from nerves, he finds that he has quite a talent for it, achieving success in the “Flower show” annual match in his village. George has had everything handed to him as a boy, and as a young man he is safe in the knowledge that his trustee will pay for his upkeep, and his devoted aunt will give him a place to live.

He spends most of his time in careless and meaningless pursuits, still finding ways to fund his occasional spending sprees in London despite his trustee’s limiting the amount of money he receives as punishment for failing at Cambridge. He becomes a well-respected hunter and rider, buying bigger and better horses and winning “point to point” races against other aristocrats.

When the war comes, George is one of the first to sign on. Like many, he expects the war to be a glorious affair—as was the case in earlier centuries—and is motivated by virtues of courage and patriotism instilled in him from an early age. While George at first signs up as a cavalryman for the Sussex Yeomanry, a subsequent injury encourages him to change his mind, and his friend Captain Huxtable helps him obtain a commission in the Royal Welsh, which would see action in the trenches.

On arriving in France, he spends a great deal of time in training and taking in the sights with a new friend he has made by the name of Dick Tiltwood. What the war’s early years impress on him is the horrors of war. He hears about the deaths of several close friends of his, among them Stephen, a friend from his hunting and racing days, and Tom Dixon, his aunt’s groom. When Dick too is sent to the front and dies, George asks to go and fight in the trenches, where he serves with distinction. By 1916, he has lost all the romance he once harbored for war.