Robert Leeson Jack Lindsay (20 October 1900 - 1990) was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n-born writer, who from 1926 lived in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, initially in Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

. He was born in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, but spent his formative years in Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

. He was the eldest son of Norman Lindsay

Norman Lindsay

Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....

.

Early life

He was educated at Brisbane Grammar School

Brisbane Grammar School

Brisbane Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, day and boarding school for boys, located in Spring Hill, an inner suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia...

 and the University of Queensland

University of Queensland

The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...

, from which he graduated with first class honours in Greek and Latin. In the 1920s he contributed stories and poems to the Bulletin

The Bulletin

The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...

, as well as editing the literary magazines Vision (with his father Norman Lindsay

Norman Lindsay

Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....

) and London Aphrodite. He founded, with P. R. Stephensen

P. R. Stephensen

Percy Reginald Stephensen was an Australian writer, publisher and political activist.He was born in Maryborough, Queensland. He was nicknamed "Inky", and attended the University of Queensland...

 and John Kirtley, the Fanfrolico Press for fine publishing, initially in North Sydney

North Sydney, New South Wales

North Sydney is a suburb and commercial district on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. North Sydney is located 3 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of North Sydney...

. Jack Lindsay left Australia in 1926, never to return. When the University of Queensland Press tried to persuade him to come to Australia for the launch of The Blood Vote in 1985, he declined.

In the UK

In the 1930s the Fanfrolico Press ceased as a business. Lindsay moved to the left politically, writing for Left Review and joining the Communist Party of Great Britain

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

 at the end of the decade, becoming an activist. He started writing novels while living 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...

. His works were published in the USSR under the name Richard Preston. He collaborated, amongst others, with Edgell Rickword

Edgell Rickword

John Edgell Rickword, MC was an English poet, critic, journalist and literary editor. He became one of the leading communist intellectuals active in the 1930s.-Early life:He was born in Colchester, Essex...

.

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 British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 initially in the Royal Signal Corps. From 1943 he worked for the War Office on theatrical scripts. After the war he lived in Castle Hedingham

Castle Hedingham

Castle Hedingham is a small village in northeast Essex, England, located four miles west of Halstead and is situated in the Colne Valley on the ancient road from Colchester, Essex, to Cambridge....

.

Fanfrolico Press books, as translator, author or editor

• Lysistrata
  Lysistrata
  Lysistrata is one of eleven surviving plays written by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end The Peloponnesian War...
  
   by Aristophanes
  Aristophanes
  Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
  
   (1925) illustrated by Norman Lindsay
• The Mimiambs of Herodas (1929) Translated by Jack Lindsay, Decorated by Alan Odle, with a Foreword by Brian Penton.
• A Defence of Women for their Inconstancy & their Paintings by Jack Donne (1925)
• The Passionate Neatherd. A lyric sequence (1926)
• Marino Faliero (1927) drama
• William Blake; Creative Will and the Poetic Image (1927)
• The Metamorphosis Of Aiax by Sir John Harington (1927) editor with Peter Warlock
  Peter Warlock
  Peter Warlock was a pseudonym of Philip Arnold Heseltine , an Anglo-Welsh composer and music critic. He used the pseudonym when composing, and is now better known by this name....
  
  
• Propertius in Love (1927) translator
• Loving Mad Tom: Bedlamite Verses of the XVI and XVII Centuries (1927) illustrations by Norman Lindsay
• Helen comes of age. Three Plays (1927)
• The Parlement of Pratlers by John Eliot (1928) editor, illustrated by Hal Collins
• Homage to Sappho (1928)
• Inspirations. An anthology of utterances by Creative Minds defining the creative act and its lyrical basis in life (1928) editor
• The Complete Works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes edited with a memoir by Sir Edmund Gosse and decorated by the Dance of Death of Holbein (1928) editor
• Dionysos: Nietzsche Contra Nietzsche. An Essay in Lyrical Philosophy (1928)
• Homer's Hymns to Aphrodite (1929)
• Hereward. A Play (1929) music by John Gough
• Women in Parliament by Aristophanes (1929) illustrations by Norman Lindsay, foreword by Edgell Rickword
• Theocritos, The Complete Poems, (1929) introduction by Edward Hutton
  Edward Hutton (writer)
  Edward Hutton was a British author of travel books and various Italian subjects.-Life and Work:Edward Hutton was born on April 12, 1875 in Hampstead, London, his father being a businessman with interests in Sheffield...
  
  , illustrations by Lionel Ellis
• The Complete Poetry of Gaius Catullus (1930) editor
• Morgan in Jamaica (1930)
• Patchwork Quilt. Poems by Decimus Magnus Ausonius (1930) translator, illustrations. by Edward Bawden
  Edward Bawden
  Edward Bawden, CBE, RA was a British painter, illustrator and graphic artist. He was also famous for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture...
  
  

To 1929

• Fauns and Ladies (1923) poems
• Poetical Sketches
  Poetical Sketches
  Poetical Sketches is the first collection of poetry and prose by William Blake, written between 1769 and 1777. Forty copies were printed in 1783 with the help of Blake's friends, the artist John Flaxman and the Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew, at the request of his wife Harriet Mathew...
  
   by William Blake. With an Essay on Blake's Metric by Jack Lindsay. (Scholartis Press
  Scholartis Press
  Scholartis Press is a small, private press in London, England, founded by Eric Partridge in 1927. The press closed in 1931, when the Great Depression began in Britain.-Writers published:...
  
   1927)
• The Modern Consciousness: An Essay Towards an Integration (1928)
• I See the Earth: Poems by Elza De Locre, Illustrated by Peter Meadows (pseudonym for Jack Lindsay), (Scholartis Press
  Scholartis Press
  Scholartis Press is a small, private press in London, England, founded by Eric Partridge in 1927. The press closed in 1931, when the Great Depression began in Britain.-Writers published:...
  
   1928)

1930-1939

• Cressida's First Lover (1931)
• The Complete Works of Gaius Petronius (Rarity Press, 1932) translator, Norman Lindsay illustrator
• The Golden Ass (Limited Editions Club, 1932) translator, illustrated by Percival Goodman
  Percival Goodman
  Percival Goodman was an American urban theorist and architect who designed more than 50 synagogues between 1948 and 1983. He has been called the "leading theorist" of modern synagogue design, and "the most prolific architect in Jewish history."-Biography:Percival Goodman was born in New York City...
  
  
• Medieval Latin Poets (1934)
• I am a Roman (1934)
• Rome for Sale (1934)
• Caesar is Dead (1934)
• Last Days With Cleopatra (1935)
• Despoiling Venus (1935)
• Storm at Sea (Golden Cockerel Press, 1935) illustrated by John Farleigh
• The Romans (1935) illustrated by Pearl Binder
• Runaway (1935) illustrated by J Morton Sale
• Who Are the English? (1936) Poem
• Come Home at Last (1936) stories
• Wanderings of Wenamem1115-1114 B.C (1936) novel
• Rebels of the Gold Fields (1936)
• John Bunyan : Maker of Myths (1937)
• The Anatomy of Spirit: An Inquiry into the Origins of Religious Emotion (1937)
• Sue Verney (1937)
• Marc Anthony. His world and his contemporaries (1937)
• To Arms: A Story of Ancient Gaul (1938) illustrated by Martin Tyas
• 1649: A Novel of a Year (1938)
• Brief Light: A Novel of Catullus (1939)
• A Handbook of Freedom: A Record of English Democracy through Twelve Centuries (1939) with Edgell Rickword
  Edgell Rickword
  John Edgell Rickword, MC was an English poet, critic, journalist and literary editor. He became one of the leading communist intellectuals active in the 1930s.-Early life:He was born in Colchester, Essex...
  
  , later editions as Spokesmen for Liberty
• Lost Birthright (1939)
• A Short History of Culture from Prehistory to the Renascence (1939)
• England, My England : A Pageant of the English People (Fore Publications, 1939) Key Books pamphlet No. 2

1940-1949

• Giuliano the Magnificent(1940) editor, Dorothy Johnson
• Hannibal Takes a Hand (1941)
• The Stormy Violence (1941)
• Light in Italy (1941)
• Socialist Russia? (c.1941)
• We Shall Return; a Novel of Dunkirk and the French Campaign (1942)
• Into Action: the Battle of Dieppe (1942) poem
• The Dons Sight Devon (1942)
• Beyond Terror (1943) novel
• Perspective for Poetry (Fore Publications, 1944) pamphlet, Key Essays No. 1
• Second Front (1944) poems
• The Whole Armour of God (1944) drama
• Robin of England (1944) drama
• Marxism and Contemporary Science: or The Fullness of Life (1944)
• The Barriers Are Down (1945)
• Hullo Stranger (1945)
• New Lyrical Ballads (1945) anthology, editor
• Jolly Swagman The Australians at Home Current Affairs No 91 (1945)
• British Achievement in Art and Music (1945)
• Time to Live (1946) novel
• Face of Coal (1946) with B. Coombes
• The Subtle Knot (1947)
• Anvil: Life and the Arts: A Miscellany (1947) editor
• Poems by Robert Herrick (Grey Walls Press 1948) editor
• Selected Poems of William Morris (Grey Walls Press, 1948) editor
• Daphnis & Chloe (1948) Daimon Press translator,illustrated by Lionel Ellis
• Catullus: The Complete Poems (Sylvan Press, 1948) translator
• Men of Forty-Eight (1948)
• Song Of A Falling World: Culture During The Break Up Of The Roman Empire A.D. 350-600 (1948)
• Mulk Raj Anand: A Critical Essay (1948)
• Clue of Darkness (1949)

1950-1959

• Three Letters to Nikolai Tikhonov (1950) poems Fore Publications Key Poets No. 7
• Paintings and Drawings By Leslie Hurry (Grey Walls Press 1950) introduction
• Charles Dickens (1950)
• A World Ahead (Fore Publications, 1950) travel in USSR 1949
• Fires in Smithfield - a novel of Mary Tudor's Reign (1950)
• Peace is our answer. Poems. With further prefactory poems by P. Eluard, P. Neruda, L. Aragon and a Foreword by J.G. Crowther. Linocuts by Noel Counihan (1950)
• The Passionate Pastoral: An 18th Century Escapade (1951) novel
• The USA Threat to British Culture- Special edition of ARENA No.8, June/July 1951 editor
• Byzantium into Europe (1952)
• Rising Tide (1953) illustrated by James Boswell
• Betrayed Spring: a novel of the British way.(1953)
• Rumanian Summer : A View of the Rumanian People's Republic (1953) with Maurice Cornforth
  Maurice Cornforth
  Maurice Campbell Cornforth was a British Marxist philosopher. When he began his career in philosophy in the early 1930s, he was a follower of Wittgenstein, writing in the then current style of analytic philosophy...
  
  
• Civil War in England (1954)
• The Moment of Choice (1955)
• George Meredith: his Life and Work (1956)
• The Romans Were Here- The Roman Period In Britain And Its Place In Our History (1956)
• After the 'Thirties: The Novel in Britain and its Future (1956)
• Three Elegies (1956)
• A Local Habitation (1957)
• The Great Oak. A Story of 1549 (1957)
• Russian Poetry 1917-1955 (1957)
• Poems of Adam Mickiewicz (1957) translator
• Arthur and His Times – Britain in the Dark Ages (1958)
• The Discovery of Britain: a Guide to Archaeology (1958)
• Life Rarely Tells: An Autobiographical Account Ending in the Year 1921 and Situated Mostly in Brisbane Queensland (1958) autobiography (i)
• 1764, the Hurlyburly of Daily Life Exemplified in One Year of the 18th Century (1959)
• The Loves of Asklepiades (Myriad Press, 1959)translator, illustrated by Paul Rudall

1960-1969

• Death of the Hero: French Painting from David to Delacroix (1960)
• The Satyricon (1960) translator
• Modern Russian Poetry (1960) editor and translator
• The Roaring Twenties - Literary Life in Sydney, New South Wales in the Years 1921-1926 (1960) autobiography (ii)
• The Writing on the Wall: An Account of the Last Days of Pompeii (1960)
• The Revolt of the Sons (1960)
• The Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius (1960) translator
• William Morris – Writer (1961)
• Ribaldry of Greece (1961) editor
• Ribaldry of Rome (1961) editor
• All on the Never Never (1961) novel
• Our Celtic Heritage (1962)
• Fanfrolico and After (1962) autobiography (iii)
• Cause, Principle, and Unity: 5 Dialogues by Giordano Bruno (1962)
• Masks and Faces (1963) novel
• Daily Life in Roman Egypt (1963)
• The Way the Ball Bounces (1964) novel
• Choice of Times (1964) novel
• Nine Days' Hero; Wat Tyler (1964)
• Leisure and Pleasure in Roman Egypt (1965)
• Thunder Underground; a novel of Nero's Rome (1965)
• The Clashing Rocks: A Study of Early Greek Religion and Culture and the Origins of Drama (1965)
• Our Anglo-Saxon Heritage (1965)
• J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work: A Critical Biography (1966)
• The Sunset Ship: Poems of J.M.W. Turner (1966) editor
• The Elegy of Haido by Teferos Anthias (1966) translator
• Our Roman Heritage (1967)
• The Ancient World: Manners and Morals (1968)
• Men and Gods on the Roman Nile (1968)
• Meetings with Poets. Memories of Dylan Thomas, Edith Sitwell, Aragon,Eluard & Tzara (1968)
• The Age of Akhnaten by Eleonore Bille-de-Mot (1968) translator
• Greece, I Keep My Vigil For You by Teferos Anthias (1968) translator
• Cézanne His Life and Art (1969)

1970-1979

• The Autobiography of Joseph Priestley (1970) editor
• The Question of Totemism reopened (1970) pamphlet
• The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt (1970)
• Cleopatra (1971)
• Origins of Astrology (1972)
• Gustave Courbet: His Life and Art (1972)
• The Normans and Their World (1973)
• Blast-Power & Ballistics Concepts of Force and Energy in the Ancient World (1974)
• Helen of Troy, Woman and Goddess (1974)
• Faces & Places (1974) illustrated by Norman Lindsay
• Death of a Spartan King and two other stories of the Ancient World (Inca Books, 1974) illustrated by Noel Counihan
• Decay and Renewal. Critical Essays on Twentieth Century Writing (1976)
• The Troubadours and Their World (1976)
• Hogarth; His Art and His World (1977)
• The Monster City: Defoe's London 1688-1730 (1978)
• William Blake: His Life and Work (1978)
• William Morris (1979)
• War Or Peace. Twelve linocuts by Noel Counihan. Poems by Jack Lindsay (1979)

1980-1991

• Collected Poems (Chiron Press, 1981)
• The Crisis In Marxism (1981)
• Thomas Gainsborough: His Life and Art (1981)
• Trinity: Music, Poems and Drawings by Jack Lindsay (1982)
• The Blood Vote (publ. 1985, written 1937) novel
• The Mandrake Press 1929-30 (1985) catalogue introduction
• William Morris, Dreamer of Dreams (Nine Elms Press, 1991) essay

New Lyrical Ballads (1945)

Edited by Lindsay, Honor Arundel and Maurice Carpenter. Poets included were:

Dai Alexander - Honor Arundel - John Atkins

John Atkins (writer)

John Alfred Atkins was a prolific British writer, playwright, poet and novelist.Atkins graduated from the Bristol University in 1938. Subsequently he worked for Mass Observation and later as Assistant and Literary Editor of the left-wing newspaper Tribune, before his call up for war service...

 - Maurice Carpenter - Herbert Corby - Leslie Daiken - Idris Davies

Idris Davies

Idris Davies was a Welsh poet. He was born in Rhymney, near Caerphilly in South Wales, the Welsh-speaking son of colliery chief winderman Evan Davies and his wife Elizabeth Ann. Davies became a poet, originally writing in Welsh, but later writing exclusively in English...

 - Tom Farnol - Alun Lewis

Alun Lewis

Alun Lewis , was a poet of the Anglo-Welsh school, and is regarded by many as Britain's finest Second World War poet.- Education :...

 - Jack Lindsay - John Manifold

John Manifold

John Streeter Manifold was an Australian poet and critic, known also for his interest in Australian folksongs. He was born in Melbourne, into a well known Camperdown family. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School, and read modern languages at Jesus College, Cambridge. While in Cambridge he...

 - Geoffrey Matthews - David Martin

David Martin (poet)

David Martin , known as an Australian poet, was born Lajos or Ludwig Detsinyi, into a Jewish family in Hungary . He used as well the names Louis Adam and Louis Destiny. He also wrote novels and short stories, and plays.He was brought up in Germany, where he first became a communist at age 17...

 - Frances Mayo - Hubert Nicholson - Harold W. Owen - Paul Potts

Paul Potts

Paul Robert Potts is an English pop opera tenor who won the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent in 2007, singing an operatic aria, "Nessun dorma" from Puccini's "Turandot". As a singer of operatic music, Potts recorded the album One Chance, which went to #1 in nine countries...

 - John Pudney

John Pudney

John Sleigh Pudney was a British journalist and writer. He was known for short stories, poetry, non-fiction and children's fiction .-Education:...

 - Arnold Rattenbury - M. Richardson - Joyce Rowe - Francis Scarfe

Francis Scarfe

Francis Scarfe was an English poet, critic and novelist, who became an academic, translator and Director of the British Institute in Paris....

 - John Singe - Randall Swingler

Randall Swingler

Randall Swingler MM was an English poet, writing extensively in the 1930s in the communist interest.His was a prosperous middle class Anglican family near Nottingham, with an industrial background in the Midlands. He was educated at Winchester College, and New College, Oxford...

 - Mike Whittock