Geoffrey Grigson - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (2 March 1905 – 25 November 1985) was a British writer. He was born in Pelynt

Pelynt

Pelynt is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated 20 miles west of Plymouth and four miles west-northwest of Looe. Pelynt has a population of around 1,124 ....

, a village near Looe

Looe

Looe is a small coastal town, fishing port and civil parish in the former Caradon district of south-east Cornwall, England, with a population of 5,280 . Looe is divided in two by the River Looe, East Looe and West Looe being connected by a bridge...

in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

Life

Geoffrey Grigson was born in 1905, the youngest of seven sons of the Rev. William Shuckforth Grigson (1845-1930), a Norfolk man who had settled in Cornwall and became vicar of Pelynt, and Mary Beatrice Boldero. The inscription on his father's slate headstone in Pelynt churchyard is the work of Eric Gill

Eric Gill

Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...

, 1931. Grigson was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford

St Edmund Hall, Oxford

St Edmund Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Better known within the University by its nickname, "Teddy Hall", the college has a claim to being "the oldest academical society for the education of undergraduates in any university"...

.

Geoffrey Grigson first came to prominence in the 1930s as a poet, then as editor from 1933 of the influential poetry magazine New Verse. Fiercely combative, he made many literary enemies for his dogmatic views.

At various times he was involved in teaching, journalism and broadcasting. 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 worked in the editorial department of the BBC Monitoring

BBC Monitoring

BBC Monitoring is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation which monitors, and reports on, mass media worldwide. Based at Caversham Park in Caversham, Reading in southern England, it has a number of overseas bureaux including Moscow, Nairobi, Kiev, Baku, Tashkent, Cairo, Tbilisi, Yerevan...

Service at Wood Norton

Wood Norton, Worcestershire

Wood Norton Hall is a Grade II listed Victorian stately home near Evesham, Worcestershire, England. It was the last home in England of Prince Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who claimed the throne of France...

near Evesham.

Later in life he was a noted critic, reviewer (for the New York Review of Books in particular), and compiler of numerous poetry anthologies. He published 13 collections of poetry, and wrote on travel, on art (notably works on Samuel Palmer

Samuel Palmer

Samuel Palmer was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.-Early life:...

, Wyndham Lewis

Wyndham Lewis

Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...

and Henry Moore

Henry Moore

Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....

), on the English countryside, and on botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

among other subjects.

Geoffrey Grigson in his later life lived partly in Wiltshire

Wiltshire

Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

, England and partly in Trôo

Troo

Trôo is a commune of the Loir-et-Cher department in central France.The village, which is partly troglodytic, is dominated by the collégiale or Saint Martin's church....

, a village in the Loir-et-Cher

Loir-et-Cher

Loir-et-Cher is a département in north-central France named after the rivers Loir and Cher.-History:Loir-et-Cher is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Orléanais and...

département in France which features in his poetry.

Family

Geoffrey Grigson's first wife was Frances Galt (who died in 1937 of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

). With her, he founded New Verse. They had one daughter, Caroline (who was married to the designer Colin Banks

Colin Banks

Colin Banks co-founder of Banks & Miles, designers and typographers, founded in London in 1958 with partner John Miles...

). His second marriage was to Berta (Bertschy) Emma Kunert, who bore him two children, Anna and Lionel Grigson

Lionel Grigson

Lionel Grigson was a British jazz pianist, cornettist and teacher. He was educated at Dartington Hall School and at King's College, Cambridge University. His father was the critic and poet Geoffrey Grigson and his first wife was the publisher Margaret Busby.In the late 1960s he led a quintet with...

, the jazz musician and educator. Following their divorce, his third and last marriage was to Jane Grigson

Jane Grigson

Jane Grigson was a notable English cookery writer.-Life and writings:...

, née McIntire (1928-90), the writer on food and cookery. Their daughter is the cookery writer Sophie Grigson

Sophie Grigson

Hester Sophia Frances Grigson is an English cookery writer and celebrity chef known as Sophie Grigson. She has followed the same path and career as her mother, Jane Grigson. Her father was the poet and writer Geoffrey Grigson.-Life:...

Works

The Arts To-day (1935), editor.
Several Observations (Cresset Press, 1939), poems.
Under the Cliff, and Other Poems (Routledge, 1943).
Henry Moore (Penguin, 1944).
Visionary Poems and Passages or The Poet's Eye (Frederick Muller, 1944), editor. Lithographs by John Craxton
John Craxton
John Leith Craxton, RA, was an English painter. He was sometimes called a neo-Romantic artist but he preferred to be known as a "kind of Arcadian".-Career:...

.
Wild Flowers in Britain (William Collins, 1944).
The Isles of Scilly and Other Poems (Routledge, 1946).
The Mint: a Miscellany of Literature, Art and Criticism (George Routledge & Sons, 1946).
Before the Romantics: an Anthology of the Enlightenment (Routledge & Sons, 1946), editor.
Samuel Palmer: the Visionary Years (Kegan Paul, 1947).
Wild Flowers in Britain (Collins, 1947).
John Craxton. Paintings and Drawings (Horizon, 1948).
Poems of John Clare's Madness (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), editor.
Poetry of the Present: an Anthology of the 'Thirties and After (Phoenix House, 1949), editor.
The Crest on the Silver: an Autobiography (Cresset Press, 1950).
The Victorians: an Anthology (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1950).
Thornton's Temple of Flora (Collins, 1951).
Essays From the Air: 29 Broadcast Talks (1951).
A Master of Our Time: a Study of Wyndham Lewis (Methuen, 1951).
Gardenage, or the Plants of Ninhursaga (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952).
Freedom of the Parish (Phoenix House, 1954). (About Pelynt, Cornwall.)
The Englishman's Flora (Phoenix House, 1955).
The Shell Guide to Flowers of the Countryside (Phoenix House, 1955).
The Shell Guide to Trees and Shrubs (Phoenix House, 1958).
English Villages in Colour (Batsford, 1958).
The Three Kings: a Christmas Book of Carols, Poems and Pieces (Gordon Fraser, 1958), editor.
The Shell Guide to Wild Life (Phoenix, 1959).
Looking and Finding (John Baker, 1958).
A Herbal of All Sorts (Macmillan, 1959).
The Cherry Tree (Phoenix House, 1959), poems.
English Excursions (Country Life, 1960).
Samuel Palmer's Valley of Vision (Phoenix House, 1960).
The Shell Country Book (Phoenix House, 1962).
Poets in Their Pride (Dent, 1962).
Gerard Manley Hopkins (Longmans, Green & Co., 1962).
Collected Poems 1924-1962 (Phoenix House, 1963).
O Rare Mankind! (Phoenix House, 1963).
The Shell Nature Book (Phoenix House, 1964).
Shapes and Stories [with Jane Grigson] (Readers Union, 1965).
The Shell Country Alphabet (Michael Joseph, 1966).
William Allingham's Diary (Centaur Press, 1967).
A Skull in Salop, and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1967).
An Ingestion of Ice Cream and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1969).
Shapes and People - A Book about Pictures (J. Baker, 1969).
Poems and Poets (Macmillan, 1969).
Notes from an Odd Country (Macmillan, 1970).
The Concise Encyclopedia of Modern World Literature (Hawthorn Books, 1970), editor.
The Faber Book of Popular Verse (1971), editor.
Discoveries of Bones and Stones (Macmillan Poets; Macmillan, 1971).
Sad Grave of an Imperial Mongoose (Macmillan, 1973), poems.
The Faber Book of Love Poems (Faber & Faber, 1973), editor.
The Faber Book of Popular Verse (Faber & Faber, 1973), editor.
The First Folio (Poem of the Month Club, 1973).
The Contrary View: Glimpses of Fudge and Gold (Macmillan, 1974).
A Dictionary of English Plant Names (and some products of plants) (Allen Lane, 1974).
Angles and Circles and Other Poems (Gollancz, 1974).
Britain Observed: the Landscape Through Artists' Eyes (1975).
The Penguin Book of Ballads (Penguin, 1975), editor.
The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs (1977), editor.
The Goddess of Love: The Birth, Triumph, Death and Return of Aphrodite (Quartet, 1978).
The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs (Faber & Faber, 1978).
The Faber Book of Nonsense Verse: With a Sprinkling of Nonsense Prose (Faber & Faber, 1979) editor.
The Oxford Book of Satirical Verse (Oxford University Press, 1980), editor.
The Penguin Book of Unrespectable Verse (Penguin, 1980), editor.
The Faber Book of Poems and Places (Faber & Faber, 1980), editor.
History of Him (Secker & Warburg, 1980), poems.
Blessings, Kicks and Curses: a critical collection (Allison & Busby, 1982).
Collected Poems 1963-1980 (Allison & Busby, 1982).
The Private Art: a Poetry Notebook (Allison & Busby, 1982).
The Cornish Dancer and Other Poems (Secker & Warburg, 1982).
Geoffrey Grigson's Countryside (Ebury Press, 1982).
Recollections, Mainly of Writers and Artists (Hogarth Press, 1984).
The English Year from Diaries and Letters (Oxford Paperbacks, 1984).
The Faber Book of Reflective Verse (Faber & Faber, 1984), editor.
Country Writings (Century, 1984).
Montaigne's Tower and Other Poems (Secker & Warbury, 1984).
Persephone's Flowers and Other Poems (David & Charles, 1986).

New Verse: An Anthology (1942 edition)

Compiled by Grigson. Poets included were:

C. Day Lewis - E. V. Swart - Bernard Spencer

Bernard Spencer

Charles Bernard Spencer was an English poet, translator, and editor.He was born in Madras, India and educated at Marlborough College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Marlborough he knew John Betjeman and Louis MacNeice; at Oxford Stephen Spender, and he also came across W. H. Auden. He...

- Philip O'Connor

Philip O'Connor

Philip O'Connor was a British writer and surrealist poet, who also painted. He was one of the 'Wheatsheaf writers' of 1930s Fitzrovia...

- Louis MacNeice

Louis MacNeice

Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...

- George Barker

George Barker (poet)

George Granville Barker was an English poet and author.-Life and work:Barker was born in Loughton, near Epping Forest in Essex, England, elder brother of Kit Barker [painter] George Barker was raised by his Irish mother and English father in Battersea, London. He was educated at an L.C.C. school...

- Kathleen Raine

Kathleen Raine

Kathleen Jessie Raine was a British poet, critic, and scholar writing in particular on William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Thomas Taylor. Known for her interest in various forms of spirituality, most prominently Platonism and Neoplatonism, she was a founder member of the Temenos Academy.-Life:Raine was...

- Frederic Prokosch

Frederic Prokosch

Frederic Prokosch was an American writer, known for his novels, poetry, memoirs and criticism. He was also a distinguished translator.-Biography:...

- A. J. Young - Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...

- Norman Cameron

Norman Cameron

Norman Cameron was a Scottish poet, distantly related to Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay who, between the two world wars, associated on Majorca with Robert Graves and Laura Riding. Later, as a part-time Fitzrovian, he was a colleague of Dylan Thomas, Geoffrey Grigson, Len Lye, John Aldridge RA,...

- Stephen Spender

Stephen Spender

Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...

- Geoffrey Taylor

Geoffrey Phibbs

Geoffrey Phibbs was an Irish poet; he took his mother's name and called himself Geoffrey Taylor, after about 1930. He was brought up in Sligo, and educated at Haileybury.In 1924 he married the artist Norah McGuinness....

- 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...

- A. J. M. Smith

A. J. M. Smith

Arthur James Marshall Smith was a Canadian poet and anthologist. He "was a prominent member of a group of Montreal poets" -- the Montreal Group, which included Leon Edel, Leo Kennedy, A.M. Klein, and F.R...

- W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...

- Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....

- Geoffrey Grigson - Hugh Chisholm

Hugh Chisholm

Hugh Chisholm was a British journalist, and editor of the 11th and 12th editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica....

- Kenneth Allott

Kenneth Allott

Kenneth Allott was an Anglo-Irish poet and academic, and authority on Matthew Arnold.-Life:Born in Glamorgan, where his father, a doctor, was serving as a locum, Allott later experienced the break-up of his parents' marriage, followed by the death of his mother...

- Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...

- Paul Éluard

Paul Éluard

Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...

- Bernard Gutteridge

Bernard Gutteridge

Bernard Gutteridge was an English poet, known for poems about the Spanish Civil War, or from his World War II experiences in Madagascar, India and with the 36th Division of the British Army in Burma ....

- Ruthven Todd

Ruthven Todd

Ruthven Campbell Todd was a Scottish poet, artist and novelist, best known as an editor of the works of William Blake. He wrote also under the pseudonym R. T. Campbell.-Background:...

- Gavin Ewart

Gavin Ewart

Gavin Buchanan Ewart was a British poet best known for contributing to Geoffrey Grigson's New Verse at the age of seventeen.-Life:...

- Charles Madge

Charles Madge

Charles Madge , was an English poet, journalist and sociologist, now most remembered as a founder of Mass-Observation.As a sociologist, he co-founded Mass-Observation with Tom Harrisson in 1937, an endeavour which would occupy more of his time than literature...

Poetry of the Present (1949)

Drummond Allison

Drummond Allison was an English war poet of World War II.He was born in Caterham, Surrey, and educated at Bishop's Stortford College and at Queen's College, Oxford. After Sandhurst training, he became an intelligence officer in the East Surrey Regiment. He served in North Africa and Italy, where...

- Kenneth Allott

Kenneth Allott

- W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden

- George Barker

George Barker (poet)

- John Bayliss

John Bayliss

John Bayliss was a British poet and significant literary editor of the World War II period; later in life a civil servant. He was born in Gloucestershire, and was an undergraduate at St Catharine's College, Cambridge...

- John Betjeman

John Betjeman

Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...

- Norman Cameron

Norman Cameron

- Cecil Day Lewis - William Empson

William Empson

Sir William Empson was an English literary critic and poet.He was known as "燕卜荪" in Chinese.He was widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, fundamental to the New Critics...

- G. S. Fraser

G. S. Fraser

George Sutherland Fraser was a Scottish poet, literary critic and academic. He was born in Glasgow, later moving with his family to Aberdeen. He went to the University of St. Andrews....

- Christopher Fry

Christopher Fry

Christopher Fry was an English playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, notably The Lady's Not for Burning, which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...

- David Gascoyne

David Gascoyne

David Gascoyne was an English poet associated with the Surrealist movement.-Early life and Surrealism:...

- Geoffrey Grigson - John Hewitt - Esmé Hooton - Glyn Jones - Sidney Keyes

Sidney Keyes

Sidney Arthur Kilworth Keyes was an English poet of World War II.- Early years :Keyes was born on 27 May 1922. He attended Tonbridge School for his secondary education and later, for his tertiary, the University of Oxford...

- James Kirkup

James Kirkup

James Falconer Kirkup, FRSL was a prolific English poet, translator and travel writer. He was brought up in South Shields, and educated at South Shields Secondary School and Durham University. He wrote over 30 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays...

- Laurie Lee

Laurie Lee

Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, and went to Marling School, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and...

- Louis MacNeice

Louis MacNeice

- Charles Madge

Charles Madge

- Hubert Nicholson - Norman Nicholson

Norman Nicholson

Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson OBE, , was an English poet, known for his association with the Cumberland town of Millom...

- Clere Parsons

Clere Parsons

Clere Parsons was an English poet, born in India.He was educated at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and edited the 1928 edition of Oxford Poetry.His only collection, Poems, was published after his death by Faber & Faber...

- Kathleen Raine

Kathleen Raine

- W. R. Rodgers

W. R. Rodgers

William Robert Rodgers , known as Bertie, and born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was probably best known as a poet, but was also a prose essayist, a book reviewer, a radio broadcaster and script writer, a lecturer and, latterly, a teacher, as well as a former Presbyterian minister.-Early life:He...

- E. J. Scovell

E. J. Scovell

Edith Joy Scovell was an English poet. She was born in Sheffield, and studied in Westmorland and at Somerville College, Oxford. She married the ecologist Charles Sutherland Elton in 1937. She also translated work of Giovanni Pascoli...

- John Short - Bernard Spencer

Bernard Spencer

- Stephen Spender

Stephen Spender

Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...

- Derek Stanford

Derek Stanford

Derek Stanford FRSL was a British writer, known as a biographer, essayist and poet. He was educated at Upper Latymer School, Hammersmith, London.As a conscientious objector during World War II he served in the Non-combatant Corps...

- Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas

- Evan Thomas

Evan Thomas

Evan Welling Thomas III is an American journalist and author. He currently teaches journalism at Princeton University.-Life and career:Thomas was born in Huntington, New York and was raised in Cold Spring Harbor, New York...

- Ruthven Todd

Ruthven Todd

Ruthven Campbell Todd was a Scottish poet, artist and novelist, best known as an editor of the works of William Blake. He wrote also under the pseudonym R. T. Campbell.-Background:...

- Rex Warner

Rex Warner

Rex Warner was an English classicist, writer and translator. He is now probably best remembered for The Aerodrome , an allegorical novel whose young hero is faced with the disintegration of his certainties about his loved ones and with a choice between the earthy, animalistic life of his home...

- Vernon Watkins

Vernon Watkins

Vernon Phillips Watkins , was a British poet, and a translator and painter. He was a close friend of Dylan Thomas, who described him as "the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English"....

External links

Biography

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