Life

He was born in Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 into a cultured family; his father was the writer Frederic William Henry Myers

Frederic William Henry Myers

Frederic William Henry Myers was a classical scholar, poet, philosopher, and past president of the Society for Psychical Research.-Early life:...

 and his mother the photographer Eveleen Tennant. He was educated at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

. His trilogy/tetralogy The Root and the Flower, set in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 at the time of Akbar, is his major work and was recognised by the award of the 1935 James Tait Black Memorial Prize

James Tait Black Memorial Prize

Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...

 for fiction.

He did not visit India, and his writings about it have been seen by some critics as reflecting his own intellectual milieu and its concerns. He was independently wealthy from his mid-20s, travelled and began to write. He married the American Elsie Palmer (1873–1955), a friend of John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...

, who painted her. He made many friends of different kinds, and late in life broke with most of them. In the 1930s he wrote in sympathy with Marxist thought, and became increasingly pessimistic in his outlook. He committed suicide in 1944.

He was on the edge of the Bloomsbury group

Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...

, and knew L. P. Hartley

L. P. Hartley

Leslie Poles Hartley was a British writer, known for novels and short stories. His best-known work is The Go-Between , which was made into a 1970 film, directed by Joseph Losey with a star cast, in an adaptation by Harold Pinter...

, Aelfrida Tillyard

Aelfrida Tillyard

Aelfrida Catherine Wetenhall Tillyard was a British author. She was born in Cambridge the daughter of Alfred Isaac Tillyard, one-time mayor of Cambridge, and Catharine Sarah Wetenhall in a liberal, non-conformist family....

 and Max Plowman

Max Plowman

Max Plowman was a British writer and pacifist.-Life to 1918:He was born in Northumberland Park, Tottenham, in London. He left school at 16, and worked for a decade in his father's brick business. He became a journalist and poet...

. He kept up a lengthy correspondence with Olaf Stapledon

Olaf Stapledon

William Olaf Stapledon was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction.-Life:...

. Other friends were David Lindsay

David Lindsay

David Lindsay may refer to:*David Lyndsay , Scottish poet*David Lindsay *David Lindsay , also Bishop of Brechin*David Lindsay , Australian explorer...

, Frank Dobson

Frank Dobson (sculptor)

Frank Dobson R.A. was a British artist and sculptor.Dobson attended the Hastings School of Art and was then an apprentice in the studio of Sir William Reynolds-Stephens. From 1910 to 1912 he attended the City and Guilds of London Art School in Kennington, South London...

, and Charles le Gai Eaton

Charles le Gai Eaton

Charles Le Gai Eaton was born in Lausanne, Switzerland and raised as an agnostic by his parents. He received his education at Charterhouse and at King's College, Cambridge. He worked for many years as a teacher and journalist in Jamaica and Egypt...

. By an anonymous loan he helped George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

 travel to Morocco in 1938, to convalesce from 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...

.

The designer EQ Nicholson

EQ Nicholson

EQ Nicholson was an English painter and fabric designer.-Early life:Born Elsie Queen Myers in London, EQ was the daughter of novelist Leo Myers and his American born wife Elsie Mellen Nicholson ; she had a younger sister Eveleen Myers Myers...

was his daughter.

Works

• Arvat (1908) verse drama
• The Orissers (1922)
• Clio (1925)
• The Root and the Flower
  • The Near and the Far (1929)
  • Prince Jali (1931)
  • Rajah Amar (1935), published as The Root and the Flower
• Strange Glory (1936)
• The Pool Of Vishnu (1940) now sometimes included as part 4 of The Root and the Flower

External links

• Enotes page