John Gawsworth
Encyclopedia
John Gawsworth a pseudonym
of Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong (also referred to as T. I. F. Armstrong), was a British writer, poet and compiler of anthologies, both of poetry and of short stories. He also used the pseudonym Orpheus Scrannel (alludes to Milton's Lycidas
). He was crowned the king of Redonda
in 1947 and became known as King Juan I.
Gawsworth grew up in Colville Gardens
, Notting Hill
, and at number 40 Royal Crescent
, Holland Park
. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School
.
As a very young man he moved in London literary circles championing more traditional verse and writing against modernism
. He ran the Twyn Barlwm Press, a small press
publishing some well-known poets, its title inspired by the mountain Twyn Barlwm beloved by one of his literary idols Arthur Machen
. Machen was one of the remaining writers of the 1890s he admired and befriended, others were Edgar Jepson
and M. P. Shiel
, whose literary executor he would later become. Gawsworth's longest piece of written work was a biography of Machen, but he could find no publisher for it in the thirties. It was finally published in 2005 to much critical acclaim.
He gave Hugh MacDiarmid
a roof over his head in London in 1934 (MacDiarmid returned the compliment in When the Rat-Race Is Over; an essay in honour of the fiftieth birthday of John Gawsworth (1962)). At this time he was very much involved in compiling story collections, generally of the fiction of the supernatural. Poetry collections of this time were Lyrics to Kingcup (1932), Mishka and Madeleine. A Poem Sequence for Marcia (1932), Poems 1930-1932 (1936), New Poems 1939. Later he published through the Richards Press.
He met and befriended the young Lawrence Durrell
in 1932, when he was living in Denmark Street ; he made friends as well as enemies (Dylan Thomas
, George Woodcock
) throughout literary London.
During World War II
, he served in the RAF
as an aircraftsman in North Africa. As one of the Cairo poets
, he made a more serious name for himself, being part of the Salamander
group. Later he returned to a picturesque eccentricity as a Fitzrovia
n. His Collected Poems appeared in 1949. A later volume is Toreros (1990).
The Known Signatures anthology (reactionary, quite literally) was prompted by the Michael Roberts
New Country collection. The Edwardian Poetry Book One (1936) (edited anonymously) and Neo-Georgian Poetry 1936-1937 are extraordinary for their retrospective vision.
As literary executor to Shiel, Gawsworth also inherited the throne of the Kingdom of Redonda
styling himself H.M. Juan I. The independent publisher Jon Wynne-Tyson
became Gawsworth's literary executor in 1970, also becoming H.M. Juan II. But Wynne-Tyson 'abdicated' in favour of the Spanish novelist and translator Javier Marías
— H.M. Xavier I — who became both Shiel's and Gawsworth's literary executor.
- A. E. Coppard
- W. H. Davies
- Lord Alfred Douglas
- Ernest Dowson
- John Drinkwater - John Freeman
- John Gawsworth - Wilfrid Gibson
- John Gray
- Lionel Johnson
- Hugh MacDiarmid
- Richard Middleton - Harold Monro
- Herbert Palmer
- Edith Sitwell
- Leonard Strong
- Edward Thomas
- Theodore Wratislaw
- Frederick Carter - Wilfred Rowland Childe
- Frank Eyre - John Gawsworth - Michael Juste - Hugh MacDiarmid
- Hamish MacLaren - Mary Francis McHugh - R. L. Mégroz
- E. H. W. Meyerstein
- Herbert Palmer
- Ruth Pitter
- Tristram Rainey - A. S. J. Tessimond
- E. H. Visiak
- Anna Wickham
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
of Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong (also referred to as T. I. F. Armstrong), was a British writer, poet and compiler of anthologies, both of poetry and of short stories. He also used the pseudonym Orpheus Scrannel (alludes to Milton's Lycidas
Lycidas
"Lycidas" is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, entitled Justa Edouardo King Naufrago, dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a collegemate of Milton's at Cambridge who drowned when his ship sank in the Irish Sea off the...
). He was crowned the king of Redonda
Kingdom of Redonda
The Kingdom of Redonda is a name for the micronation aspect of the tiny uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda.This islet is situated between the islands of Nevis and Montserrat, within the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain, in the West Indies. The island is currently legally a dependency of...
in 1947 and became known as King Juan I.
Gawsworth grew up in Colville Gardens
Colville Gardens
Colville Gardens is a Victorian cul-de-sac street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, located north of Colville Terrace and east of the Portobello Market in Notting Hill, London, England...
, Notting Hill
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
, and at number 40 Royal Crescent
Royal Crescent (Holland Park)
The Royal Crescent is a Grade II* listed street in Holland Park, west London, England, consisting of two curved facing terraces in a crescent shape. The crescent is located on the north side of Holland Park Avenue, west of Addison Avenue, and to the east of the Holland Park Roundabout.Between the...
, Holland Park
Holland Park
Holland Park is a district and a public park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in west central London, England.Holland Park has a reputation as an affluent and fashionable area, known for attractive large Victorian townhouses, and high-class shopping and restaurants...
. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School
Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood
Merchant Taylors' School is a British independent day school for boys, originally located in the City of London. Since 1933 it has been located at Sandy Lodge in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire ....
.
As a very young man he moved in London literary circles championing more traditional verse and writing against modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
. He ran the Twyn Barlwm Press, a small press
Small press
Small press is a term often used to describe publishers with annual sales below a certain level. Commonly, in the United States, this is set at $50 million, after returns and discounts...
publishing some well-known poets, its title inspired by the mountain Twyn Barlwm beloved by one of his literary idols Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...
. Machen was one of the remaining writers of the 1890s he admired and befriended, others were Edgar Jepson
Edgar Jepson
Edgar Alfred Jepson was an English writer, principally of mainstream adventure and detective fiction, but also of some supernatural and fantasy stories that are better remembered. He used a pseudonym R...
and M. P. Shiel
M. P. Shiel
Matthew Phipps Shiel was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent. His legal surname remained "Shiell" though he adopted the shorter version as a de facto pen name....
, whose literary executor he would later become. Gawsworth's longest piece of written work was a biography of Machen, but he could find no publisher for it in the thirties. It was finally published in 2005 to much critical acclaim.
He gave Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...
a roof over his head in London in 1934 (MacDiarmid returned the compliment in When the Rat-Race Is Over; an essay in honour of the fiftieth birthday of John Gawsworth (1962)). At this time he was very much involved in compiling story collections, generally of the fiction of the supernatural. Poetry collections of this time were Lyrics to Kingcup (1932), Mishka and Madeleine. A Poem Sequence for Marcia (1932), Poems 1930-1932 (1936), New Poems 1939. Later he published through the Richards Press.
He met and befriended the young Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan...
in 1932, when he was living in Denmark Street ; he made friends as well as enemies (Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
, George Woodcock
George Woodcock
George Woodcock was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet, and published several volumes of travel writing. He founded in 1959 the journal Canadian Literature, the first academic journal specifically...
) throughout literary London.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he served in the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
as an aircraftsman in North Africa. As one of the Cairo poets
Cairo poets
The British Army presence in Egypt in World War II had, as a side effect, the concentration of a group of Cairo poets. There had in fact been a noticeable literary group in Cairo before the war in North Africa broke out, including university academics. Possibly as a reflection of that, there were...
, he made a more serious name for himself, being part of the Salamander
Salamander: A Miscellany of Poetry
Salamander: A Miscellany of Poetry was an anthology of poetry published by George Allen and Unwin in 1947 and featuring the work of many of the Cairo poets. It was edited by Keith Bullen and John Cromer. The title alluded to the rebirth of culture from the ashes of World War II...
group. Later he returned to a picturesque eccentricity as a Fitzrovia
Fitzrovia
Fitzrovia is a neighbourhood in central London, near London's West End lying partly in the London Borough of Camden and partly in the City of Westminster ; and situated between Marylebone and Bloomsbury and north of Soho. It is characterised by its mixed-use of residential, business, retail,...
n. His Collected Poems appeared in 1949. A later volume is Toreros (1990).
The Known Signatures anthology (reactionary, quite literally) was prompted by the Michael Roberts
Michael Roberts
Michael Roberts may refer to:*Michael Roberts , British poet, writer, critic and broadcaster*Michael Roberts , British historian...
New Country collection. The Edwardian Poetry Book One (1936) (edited anonymously) and Neo-Georgian Poetry 1936-1937 are extraordinary for their retrospective vision.
As literary executor to Shiel, Gawsworth also inherited the throne of the Kingdom of Redonda
Kingdom of Redonda
The Kingdom of Redonda is a name for the micronation aspect of the tiny uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda.This islet is situated between the islands of Nevis and Montserrat, within the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain, in the West Indies. The island is currently legally a dependency of...
styling himself H.M. Juan I. The independent publisher Jon Wynne-Tyson
Jon Wynne-Tyson
Jon Wynne-Tyson is a British author, publisher, activist and pacifist who founded Centaur Press in 1954. He ran Centaur Press from his home in Sussex and is a distinguished independent publisher. Centaur Press was a full-time independent publishing company until it was sold in 1998...
became Gawsworth's literary executor in 1970, also becoming H.M. Juan II. But Wynne-Tyson 'abdicated' in favour of the Spanish novelist and translator Javier Marías
Javier Marías
Javier Marías is a Spanish novelist. He is also a translator and columnist.-Life:Javier Marías was born in Madrid. His father was the philosopher Julián Marías, who was briefly imprisoned and then banned from teaching for opposing Franco...
— H.M. Xavier I — who became both Shiel's and Gawsworth's literary executor.
Poets in Known Signatures (1932)
Edmund BlundenEdmund Blunden
Edmund Charles Blunden, MC was an English poet, author and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was also a reviewer for English publications and an academic in Tokyo and later Hong Kong...
- A. E. Coppard
A. E. Coppard
Alfred Edgar Coppard was an English writer, noted for his influence on the short story form, and poet.-Life:He was born, the son of a tailor and a housemaid, in Folkestone, and had little formal education...
- W. H. Davies
W. H. Davies
William Henry Davies or W. H. Davies was a Welsh poet and writer. Davies spent a significant part of his life as a tramp or vagabond in the United States and United Kingdom, but became known as one of the most popular poets of his time...
- Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...
- Ernest Dowson
Ernest Dowson
Ernest Christopher Dowson , born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement.- Biography :...
- John Drinkwater - John Freeman
John Freeman (Georgian poet)
John Frederick Freeman, , was an English poet and essayist, who gave up a successful career in insurance to write full time.He was born in London, and started as an office boy aged 13...
- John Gawsworth - Wilfrid Gibson
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson was a British Georgian poet, associated with World War I but also the author of much later work.-Early work:...
- John Gray
John Gray (poet)
John Gray was an English poet whose works include Silverpoints, The Long Road and Park: A Fantastic Story. It has often been suggested that he was the inspiration behind Oscar Wilde's fictional Dorian Gray....
- Lionel Johnson
Lionel Johnson
Lionel Pigot Johnson was an English poet, essayist and critic. He was born at Broadstairs, and educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, graduating in 1890. He became a Catholic convert in 1891. He lived a solitary life in London, struggling with alcoholism and his repressed...
- Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...
- Richard Middleton - Harold Monro
Harold Monro
Harold Edward Monro was a British poet, the proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London which helped many famous poets bring their work before the public....
- Herbert Palmer
Herbert Edward Palmer
Herbert Edward Palmer was an English poet and critic.He was born in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire and educated at Woodhouse Grove School, Birmingham University and Bonn University...
- Edith Sitwell
Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE was a British poet and critic.-Background:Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping...
- Leonard Strong
Leonard Strong
Leonard Alfred George Strong was an English writer, known as a novelist, journalist, poet and director of the publishers Methuen Ltd.- Life :...
- Edward Thomas
Edward Thomas
Edward Thomas may refer to:People:*Edward Beers Thomas, American judge*Edward J. Thomas , librarian and author of several books on the history of Buddhism*Edward Lloyd Thomas, Confederate American Civil War general...
- Theodore Wratislaw
Poets in Edwardian Poets (1936)
Roy CampbellRoy Campbell (poet)
Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as Roy Campbell, was an Anglo-African poet and satirist. He was considered by T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell to have been one of the best poets of the period between the First and Second World Wars...
- Frederick Carter - Wilfred Rowland Childe
Wilfred Rowland Childe
Wilfred Rowland Childe was a British poet and critic. He was educated at Harrow School and Magdalen College, Oxford. He edited Oxford Poetry in 1916 and 1917. He became a Roman Catholic convert in 1916. He is chiefly remembered for 'Dream English. A Fantastical Romance' which was and still is...
- Frank Eyre - John Gawsworth - Michael Juste - Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...
- Hamish MacLaren - Mary Francis McHugh - R. L. Mégroz
R. L. Mégroz
Rodolphe Louis Mégroz was a prolific English writer, critic and poet. He was born in London, with a French father and English mother. He worked in a bank before World War I, in which he served in the British Army at Gallipoli.After the war he trained as a journalist, and worked as a freelance. He...
- E. H. W. Meyerstein
E. H. W. Meyerstein
Edward Harry William Meyerstein was an English writer and scholar. He wrote poetry and short stories, and a Life Of Thomas Chatterton.-Early life and education:...
- Herbert Palmer
Herbert Edward Palmer
Herbert Edward Palmer was an English poet and critic.He was born in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire and educated at Woodhouse Grove School, Birmingham University and Bonn University...
- Ruth Pitter
Ruth Pitter
Emma Thomas "Ruth" Pitter, CBE, FRSL was a 20th century British poet.She was the first woman to receive the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1955, and was appointed a CBE in 1979 to honour her many contributions to English literature.In 1974, she was named a "Companion of Literature", the highest...
- Tristram Rainey - A. S. J. Tessimond
A. S. J. Tessimond
Arthur Seymour John Tessimond was an English poet.He went to Charterhouse School, but ran away at age 16...
- E. H. Visiak
E. H. Visiak
Edward Harold Physick was an English writer, known chiefly as a critic and authority on John Milton; also a poet and fantasy writer. He used the pseudonym E. H. Visiak from 1910.-Life:...
- Anna Wickham
Anna Wickham
Anna Wickham was the pseudonym of Edith Alice Mary Harper , a British poet with strong Australian connections. She is remembered as a modernist figure and feminist writer, though one not able to command sustained critical attention in her lifetime...
External links
- The Lyric Struggles of John Gawsworth
- At Supernatural Fiction Database, story anthologies
- John Gawsworth Collection, Photographs at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
- Shiel's Collaborators III: John Gawsworth
- John Gawsworth fonds at University of Victoria, Special Collections