Richard Aldington
Encyclopedia
Aldington was best known for his World War I poetry, the 1929 novel, Death of a Hero
Death of a Hero
Death of a Hero is a World War I novel by Richard Aldington. It was his first novel, written in 1929, and thought to be partly autobiographical.-Plot summary:...
, and the controversy arising from his 1955 Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry. His 1946 biography, Wellington, was awarded the 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...
.
Early life
Aldington was born in Portsmouth, the son of a solicitor, and educated at Dover CollegeDover College
Dover College is a co-educational independent school in Dover in southeast England. It was founded in 1871, and takes both day pupils and boarders....
, and for a year at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
. He was unable to complete his degree because of the financial circumstances of his family. He met the poet H.D.
H.D.
H.D. was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington...
in 1911 and they married two years later.
Man of letters
His poetry was associated with the Imagist group, and his work forms almost one third of the Imagists' inaugural anthology Des Imagistes (1914). Ezra PoundEzra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
had in fact coined the term imagistes for H.D. and Aldington, in 1912.
At this time, he was one of the poets around the proto-Imagist T. E. Hulme
T. E. Hulme
Thomas Ernest Hulme was an English critic and poet who, through his writings on art, literature and politics, had a notable influence upon modernism.-Early life:...
; Robert Ferguson in his life of Hulme portrays Aldington as too squeamish to approve of Hulme's robust approach, particularly to women. However, Aldington shared Hulme's conviction that experimentation with traditional Japanese verse forms
Waka (poetry)
Waka or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature...
could provide a way forward for avant-garde literature in English, and went often to the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
to examine Nishiki-e
Nishiki-e
refers to Japanese multi-colored woodblock printing; this technique is used primarily in ukiyo-e. It was invented in the 1760s, and perfected and popularized by the printmaker Suzuki Harunobu, who produced a great many nishiki-e prints between 1765 and his death five years later.Previously, most...
prints illustrating such poetry.
He knew 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...
well, also, reviewing his work in The Egoist
The Egoist (periodical)
The Egoist was a London literary magazine published from 1914 to 1919, during which time it published important early modernist poetry and fiction. In its manifesto, it claimed to "recognise no taboos," and published a number of controversial works, such as parts of Ulysses...
at this time, hanging a Lewis portfolio around the room and on a similar note of tension between the domestic and the small circle of London modernists regretting having lent Lewis his razor when the latter announced with hindsight a venereal infection. Going out without a hat, and an interest in Fabian socialism, were perhaps unconventional enough for him.
At this time he was also an associate of Ford Madox Ford
Ford Madox Ford
Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature...
, helping him with a hack propaganda volume for a government commission in 1914 and taking dictation for The Good Soldier
The Good Soldier
The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 novel by English novelist Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers, and his own seemingly perfect marriage and that of two American friends...
when H.D. found it too harrowing.
In 1915, Aldington and H.D. moved within London, away from 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...
very near Ezra Pound and Dorothy, to Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, close to D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
and Frieda
Frieda von Richthofen
Frieda Freiin von Richthofen , a distant relative of the "Red Baron" Manfred von Richthofen, who is best known for her marriage to the British novelist D. H. Lawrence.-Life:...
. Their relationship became strained by external romantic interests and the stillborn birth of their child. Between 1914 and 1916 he was literary editor of The Egoist, and columnist there. He was assistant editor with Leonard Compton-Rickett under Dora Marsden
Dora Marsden
Dora Marsden was an English feminist editor of avant-garde literary journals, and an author of philosophical writings.-Early life:...
. The gap between the Imagist and Futurist groups was defined partly by Aldington's critical disapproval of the poetry of Filippo Marinetti.
World War I and aftermath
He joined the army in 1916, was commissioned in the Royal SussexsRoyal Sussex Regiment
The Royal Sussex Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 to 1966. The regiment was formed as part of the Childers reforms by the amalgamation of the 35th Regiment of Foot and the 107th Regiment of Foot...
in 1917 and was wounded on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
. Aldington never completely recovered from his war experiences, and may have continued to suffer from the then-unrecognised phenomenon of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Aldington and H. D. attempted to mend their marriage in 1919, after the birth of her daughter by a friend of writer D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
, named Cecil Gray
Cecil Gray
Cecil Gray was a Scottish music critic and composer. He published books on the composers Jean Sibelius, Peter Warlock and Carlo Gesualdo, the last of these co-authored by the same Warlock; also a history of music, collections of essays on music, a play about Gilles de Rais and an autobiography.He...
, with whom she had become involved and lived with while Aldington was at war. However, she was by this time deeply involved in a lesbian relationship with the wealthy writer Bryher
Bryher
Bryher was the pen name of the novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor Annie Winifred Ellerman. She was born in September 1894 in Margate. Her father was the shipowner and financier John Ellerman, who at the time of his death in 1933, was the richest Englishman who had ever lived...
, and she and Aldington formally separated, both becoming romantically involved with other people, but they did not divorce until 1938. They remained friends, however, for the rest of their lives.
Relationship with T. S. Eliot
He helped T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
in a practical way, by persuading Harriet Shaw Weaver
Harriet Shaw Weaver
Harriet Shaw Weaver was a political activist and a magazine editor. She also became the patron of James Joyce....
to appoint Eliot as his successor at The Egoist (helped by Pound), and later in 1919 with an introduction to the editor Bruce Richmond of the Times Literary Supplement, for which he reviewed French literature. He was on the editorial board, with Conrad Aiken
Conrad Aiken
Conrad Potter Aiken was an American novelist and poet, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, a play and an autobiography.-Early years:...
, Eliot, Lewis and Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
, of Chaman Lall's London literary quarterly Coterie published 1919–1921. With Lady Ottoline Morrell
Lady Ottoline Morrell
The Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell was an English aristocrat and society hostess. Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers such as Aldous Huxley, Siegfried Sassoon, T. S. Eliot and D. H...
, Leonard Woolf
Leonard Woolf
Leonard Sidney Woolf was an English political theorist, author, publisher and civil servant, and husband of author Virginia Woolf.-Early life:...
and Harry Norton he took part in Ezra Pound's scheme to 'get Eliot out of the bank' (Eliot had a job in the international department of Lloyd's, a London bank, and well-meaning friends wanted him full-time writing poetry). This manoeuvre towards Bloomsbury
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...
came to little, with Eliot getting £50 and unwelcome publicity in the Liverpool Post, but gave Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...
an opening for mockery.
Aldington made an effort with A Fool I' the Forest (1924) to reply to the new style of poetry launched by The Waste Land
The Waste Land
The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
. He was being published at the time, for example in The Chapbook, but clearly took on too much hack work just to live. He suffered some sort of breakdown in 1925. His interest in poetry waned, and he was straighforwardly jealous of Eliot's celebrity.
His attitude towards Eliot shifted, from someone who would mind the Eliots' cat in his cottage (near Reading, Berkshire
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
, in 1921), and to whom Eliot could confide his self-diagnosis of abulia. Aldington became a supporter of Vivienne Eliot in the troubled marriage, and savagely satirized her husband as "Jeremy Cibber" in Stepping Heavenward (Florence 1931). He was at this time living with Arabella Yorke (real given name Dorothy), a lover since Mecklenburgh Square
Mecklenburgh Square
Mecklenburgh Square is a Grade II listed public square located in the King's Cross area of central London. It is notable for the number of historic terraced houses that face directly onto the square....
days. It was a lengthy and passionate relationship, coming to an end when he went abroad.
Later life
He went into self-imposed 'exile' from England in 1928. He lived in Paris for years, living with Brigit Patmore, and being fascinated by Nancy CunardNancy Cunard
Nancy Clara Cunard was a writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class but strongly rejected her family's values, devoting much of her life to fighting racism and fascism...
whom he met in 1928. After his divorce in 1938 he married Netta, née McCullough, previously Brigit's daughter-in-law as Mrs. Michael Patmore.
Death of a Hero
Death of a Hero
Death of a Hero is a World War I novel by Richard Aldington. It was his first novel, written in 1929, and thought to be partly autobiographical.-Plot summary:...
, published in 1929, was his literary response to the war, commended by 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...
as 'the best war novel of the epoch'. It was written while he was living on the island of Port-Cros in Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
as a development of a manuscript from a decade before. Opening with a letter to the playwright Halcott Glover, the book takes a variable but generally satirical, cynical and critical posture, and belabours Victorian and Edwardian cant
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie....
. He went on to publish several works of fiction.
In 1930, he published a bawdy translation of The Decameron
The Decameron
The Decameron, also called Prince Galehaut is a 14th-century medieval allegory by Giovanni Boccaccio, told as a frame story encompassing 100 tales by ten young people....
. In 1933, his novel titled All Men are Enemies appeared; it was a romance, as the author chose to call it, and a brighter book than Death of a Hero
Death of a Hero
Death of a Hero is a World War I novel by Richard Aldington. It was his first novel, written in 1929, and thought to be partly autobiographical.-Plot summary:...
, even though Aldington took an anti-war stance again. In 1942, having moved to the United States with his new wife Netta Patmore, he began to write biographies. The first was one of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
(The Duke: Being an Account of the Life & Achievements of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, 1943). It was followed by works on D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
(Portrait of a Genius, But..., 1950), Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
(Portrait of a Rebel, 1957), and T. E. Lawrence
T. E. Lawrence
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO , known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18...
(Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry, 1955).
Aldington's biography of T. E. Lawrence caused a scandal on its publication, and an immediate backlash. It made many controversial assertions. He was the first to bring to public notice the fact of Lawrence's illegitimacy. He also asserted that Lawrence was homosexual. Lawrence lived a celibate life, and none of his close friends (of whom several were homosexual) had believed him to be gay. He attacked Lawrence as a liar and a charlatan, claims which have colored Lawrence's reputation ever since. Only later were confidential government files concerning Lawrence's career released, allowing the accuracy of Lawrence's own account to be gauged. Aldington's own reputation has never fully recovered from what came to be seen as a venomous attack upon Lawrence's reputation. Many believed that Aldington's suffering in the bloodbath of Europe during World War I caused him to resent Lawrence's reputation, gained in the Middle Eastern arena.
Aldington died in France on 27 July 1962, shortly after being honoured and feted in Moscow on the occasion of his seventieth birthday and the publication of some of his novels in Russian translation. He didn't approve of the Communist "party line", though, and the Russians didn't succeed in making him endorse it. His politics had in fact moved far towards the right — opinions he shared with Lawrence Durrell, a close friend since the 1950s — but he had felt shut out by the British establishment after his T. E. Lawrence book. He lived in Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
, at Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
and Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
.
On 11 November 1985, Aldington was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
's Poet's Corner. The inscription on the stone is a quotation from the work of a fellow Great War poet, Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...
. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."
A savage style and embitterment
Aldington could write with an acid pen. The Georgian poetsGeorgian poets
The Georgian poets were, by the strictest definition, those whose works appeared in a series of five anthologies named Georgian Poetry, published by Harold Monro and edited by Edward Marsh. The first volume contained poems written in 1911 and 1912. The poets included Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brooke,...
, who (Pound had decided) were the Imagists' sworn enemies, he devastated with the accusation of a little trip for a little weekend to a little cottage where they wrote a little poem on a little theme. He took swipes at 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....
, whose Poetry Review had published him and given him reviewing work. On the other side of the balance sheet, he spent time supporting literary folk: the alcoholic Monro, and others such as F. S. Flint
F. S. Flint
Frank Stuart Flint was an English poet and translator who was a prominent member of the Imagist group. Ford Madox Ford called him "one of the greatest men and one of the beautiful spirits of the country"....
and Frederic Manning
Frederic Manning
Frederic Manning was an Australian poet and novelist.-Biography:Born in Sydney, Manning was the son of local politician Sir William Patrick Manning. His family were Catholics, of Irish origin. A sickly child , Manning was educated exclusively at home...
who needed friendship.
Alec Waugh
Alec Waugh
Alexander Raban Waugh , was a British novelist, the elder brother of the better-known Evelyn Waugh and son of Arthur Waugh, author, literary critic, and publisher...
, who met him through Harold Monro, described him as embittered by the war, and offered Douglas Goldring
Douglas Goldring
Douglas Goldring was a British writer and journalist.-Life:He was born in Greenwich, England. He was educated initially at Hurstpierpoint, Magdalen College School and for his secondary education Felsted...
as comparison; but took it that he worked off his spleen in novels like The Colonel's Daughter (1931), rather than letting it poison his life. His novels in fact contained thinly-veiled, disconcerting (at least to the subjects) portraits of some of his friends (Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Pound in particular), the friendship not always surviving. Lyndall Gordon
Lyndall Gordon
Lyndall Gordon is a South African writer and academic, known for her literary biographies. Born in Cape Town, she was an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town, then a doctoral student at Columbia University...
characterises the sketch of Eliot in the memoirs Life for Life's Sake (1941) as 'snide'. As a young man he enjoyed being cutting about William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
, but remained on good enough terms to visit him in later years at Rapallo
Rapallo
Rapallo is a municipality in the province of Genoa, in Liguria, northern Italy. As of 2007 it counts approximately 34,000 inhabitants, it is part of the Tigullio Gulf and is located in between Portofino and Chiavari....
.
An obituary described him as an "angry young man", and an '"angry old man to the end".
Works
- Images (1910–1915) (1915) as Images – Old and New (1916) (US)
- The Poems of Anyte of Tegea (1916) translator
- Images of Desire (Elkin Mathews, 1919)
- Images of War (1919)
- War and Love: Poems 1915–1918 (1919)
- Greek Songs in the Manner of Anacreon (1919) translator
- A Book of 'Characters' from Theophrastus, Joseph Hall, Sir Thomas Overbury, Nicolas Breton, John Earle
- Hymen (Egoist Press, 1921) with H. D.
- Medallions in Clay (1921)
- The Good-Humoured Ladies: A Comedy by Carlo GoldoniCarlo GoldoniCarlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
(1922) translator, with Arthur SymonsArthur SymonsArthur William Symons , was a British poet, critic and magazine editor.-Life:Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy... - Exile and other poems (1923)
- Literary Studies and Reviews (1924) essays
- Sturly by Pierre Custot (1924) translator
- The Mystery of the Nativity: Translated from the Liegeois of the XVth Century (Medici Society, 1924) translator
- A Fool I' the Forest: A Phantasmagoria (1924) poem
- Voltaire (1925)
- French Studies and Reviews (1926)
- The Love of Myrrhine and Konallis: and other prose poems (1926)
- Cyrano De Bergerac, Voyages to the Moon and the Sun (1927)
- D. H. Lawrence: An Indiscretion (1927)
- Letters of Madame De Sevigné (1927) translator
- Letters Of Voltaire And Frederick The Great (1927) translator
- Candide and Other Romances by Voltaire (1928) translator with Norman Tealby
- Collected Poems (1928)
- Fifty Romance Lyric Poems (1928) translator
- Hark the Herald (Hours Press, 1928)
- Rémy De Gourmont: Selections. (1928) translator
- Death of a HeroDeath of a HeroDeath of a Hero is a World War I novel by Richard Aldington. It was his first novel, written in 1929, and thought to be partly autobiographical.-Plot summary:...
: A Novel (1929) - The Eaten Heart (Hours Press, 1929) poems
- A Dream in the Luxembourg: A Poem (1930)
- The Memoirs and Correspondence of Mme. D'Epinay (1930) translator
- Euripedes' Alcestis (1930) translator
- At All Costs (1930)
- D. H. Lawrence: A Brief and Inevitably Fragmentary Impression (1930)
- Last Straws (Hours Press, 1930)
- Medallions from Anyte of Tegea, Meleager of Gadara, the Anacreontea, Latin Poets of the Renaissance (1930) translator
- The Memoirs of Marmontel (1930) editor, with Brigit Patmore
- Roads to Glory (1930) stories
- Tales from the Decameron (1930) translator
- Two Stories (Elkin Mathews, 1930)
- Letters to the Amazon by Rémy de GourmontRemy de GourmontRemy de Gourmont was a French Symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars...
(1931) translator - Balls and Another Book for Suppression (1931)
- The Colonel's Daughter: A Novel (1931)
- Stepping Heavenward: A Record (1931) satire aimed at T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
- Aurelia by Gérard de NervalGérard de NervalGérard de Nerval was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, one of the most essentially Romantic French poets.- Biography :...
(1932) translator - Soft Answers (1932) five short novels
- All Men Are Enemies: A Romance (1933)
- Last Poems of D. H. Lawrence (1933) edited with Giuseppe Orioli
- Poems of Richard Aldington (1934)
- Women Must Work: A Novel (1934)
- Artifex: Sketches And Ideas (1935) essays
- D. H. Lawrence (1935)
- The Spirit of Place (1935), editor, D. H. Lawrence prose anthology
- Life Quest (1935) poem
- Life of a Lady: A Play in Three Acts (1936) with Derek PatmoreDerek PatmoreDerek Coventry Patmore was a British writer. He was the great grandson of the poet Coventry Patmore.Patmore was educated at Uppingham School...
- The Crystal World (1937)
- Very Heaven (1937)
- Seven Against Reeves: A Comedy-Farce (1938) novel
- Rejected Guest (1939) novel
- W. Somerset Maugham; An Appreciation (1939)
- Life for Life's Sake: Memories Of A Vanished England & A Changing World, By One Who Was Bohemian, Poet, Soldier, Novelist & Wanderer (1941) memoir
- Poetry of the English-Speaking World (1941) anthology, editor
- A Wreath For San Gemignano (1945) sonnets of Folgore da San Gemignano
- A Life of Wellington: The Duke (1946)
- Great French Romances (1946) novels by Madame De Lafayette, Choderlos De Laclos, the Abbe Prévost, Honoré de Balzac
- Oscar Wilde Selected Works (1946) editor
- The Romance of Casanova: A Novel (1946)
- Complete Poems (1948)
- Four English Portraits 1801–1851 (1948)
- Selected Works of Walter Pater (1948)
- Jane Austen (1948)
- Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio (two volumes) (1949) translator
- The Strange Life of Charles Waterton 1782–1865 (1949)
- A Bibliography of the Works of Richard Aldington from 1915 to 1948 (1950) with Alister Kershaw
- Selected Letters of D. H. Lawrence (1950) editor
- An Appreciation: D. H. Lawrence 1885–1930 (1950) also as D. H. Lawrence Portrait of a Genius But...
- The Religion of Beauty: Selections From The Aesthetes (1950) anthology, editor
- Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, A Lecture (Peacocks Press, 1954)
- Lawrence L'Imposteur: T.E. Lawrence, The Legend and the Man (1954) Paris edition, later title Lawrence of Arabia, A Biographical Enquiry (1955)
- Pinorman: Personal Recollections of Norman Douglas, Pino Orioli & Charles Prentice (1954)
- A. E. Housman & W. B. Yeats: Two Lectures (Hurst Press, 1955)
- Introduction to Mistral (1956)
- Frauds (1957)
- Portrait of a Rebel: The Life and Work of Robert Louis Stevenson (1957)
- The Viking Book of Poetry of the English-Speaking World Volume II (1958) editor
- Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (1960) translator with Delano Ames
- Switzerland (1960)
- Famous Cities of the World: Rome (1960)
- A Tourist's Rome
- Richard Aldington: Selected Critical Writing, 1928–1960 (1970) edited by Alister Kershaw
- A Passionate Prodigality: Letters to Alan Bird from Richard Aldington, 1949–1962 (1975) edited by Miriam J. Benkovitz
- Literary Lifelines: The Richard Aldington and Lawrence Durrell Correspondence (1981)
- In Winter: A Poem (Typographeum Press, 1987)
- Austria
- France
- Italy
Sources
- Richard Aldington: An Englishman (1931) Thomas McGreevyThomas McGreevyThomas McGreevy was a Canadian politician and contractor.Born in Quebec, he was the son of Robert McGreevy, a blacksmith, and Rose Smith...
- Richard Aldington by C. P. SnowC. P. SnowCharles Percy Snow, Baron Snow of the City of Leicester CBE was an English physicist and novelist who also served in several important positions with the UK government...
- Richard Aldington. An Intimate Portrait (1965) by Alister Kershaw, and Frederic-Jacques Temple
- Richard Aldington 1892–1962: A Catalogue of The Frank G. Harrington Collection of Richard Aldington and Hilda H.D. Doolittle (1973)
- The Poetry of Richard Aldington (1974) Norman T. Gates
- A Checklist of the Letters of Richard Aldington (1977) edited by Norman T. Gates
- Richard Aldington, Papers from the Reading Conference. (1987) edited by Lionel Kelly
- Richard Aldington, a biography (1989) Charles Doyle ISBN 0-8093-1566-1
- Richard Aldington: Reappraisals (1990) edited by Charles Doyle
- Richard Aldington: An Autobiography in Letters (1992) edited by Norman T. Gates
The Religion of Beauty
The Religion of Beauty (subtitle Selections From the Aesthetes) was a prose and poetry anthologyAnthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
edited by Aldington and published in 1950. Listed below are the authors Aldington included, providing insight into Aldingtons generation and tastes:
Prose
Aubrey BeardsleyAubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
– Max Beerbohm
Max Beerbohm
Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson.-Early life:...
– Vernon Lee
Vernon Lee
Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget . She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she also wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel.-Biography:She was born at Château...
– Edward MacCurdy – Fiona MacLeod – George Meredith
George Meredith
George Meredith, OM was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era.- Life :Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two...
– Alice Meynell
Alice Meynell
Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet.-Biography:...
– George Moore
George Moore
George Moore may refer to:*George Edward Moore , G.E. Moore, British philosopher*George Moore , Member of Parliament for Dublin City 1826–1831*George Moore , landowner and High Sheriff of Derbyshire...
– William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
– Frederick W. H. Myers – Walter Pater
Walter Pater
Walter Horatio Pater was an English essayist, critic of art and literature, and writer of fiction.-Early life:...
– Robert Ross
Robert Baldwin Ross
Robert Baldwin "Robbie" Ross was a Canadian journalist and art critic. He is best known as the executor of the estate of Oscar Wilde, to whom he had been a lifelong friend. He was also responsible for bringing together several great literary figures, such as Siegfried Sassoon, and acting as their...
– Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...
– John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
– John Addington Symonds
John Addington Symonds
John Addington Symonds was an English poet and literary critic. Although he married and had a family, he was an early advocate of male love , which he believed could include pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships. He referred to it as l'amour de l'impossible...
– Arthur Symons
Arthur Symons
Arthur William Symons , was a British poet, critic and magazine editor.-Life:Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy...
– Rachel Annand Taylor
Rachel Annand Taylor
Rachel Annand Taylor was a Scottish poet, biographer and literary critic.Born in Aberdeen to stonemason John Annand and his wife Clarinda Dinnie, she was one of the first women to study at Aberdeen University. She later taught at Aberdeen High School for Girls.As a writer she was admired by...
– James McNeill Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
Poetry
William AllinghamWilliam Allingham
William Allingham was an Irish man of letters and a poet.-Biography:He was born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland and was the son of the manager of a local bank who was of English descent...
– Henry C. Beeching – Oliver Madox Brown – Olive Custance
Olive Custance
Olive Eleanor Custance was a British poet. She was part of the aesthetic movement of the 1890s, and a contributor to The Yellow Book....
– John Davidson
John Davidson (poet)
John Davidson was a Scottish poet, playwright and novelist, best known for his ballads. He also did translations from French and German...
– Austin Dobson
Austin Dobson
Austin Dobson was an auto driver from England.Brother of auto racer Arthur Charles, he participated at first edition, in 1936, of the Hungarian Grand Prix with Alfa Romeo....
– 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...
– Evelyn Douglas – Edward Dowden
Edward Dowden
Edward Dowden , was an Irish critic and poet.He was the son of John Wheeler Dowden, a merchant and landowner, and was born at Cork, three years after his brother John, who became Bishop of Edinburgh in 1886. Edward's literary tastes emerged early, in a series of essays written at the age of twelve...
– 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 :...
– Michael Field – Norman Gale
Norman Gale
For the Wales international rugby union player see Norman Gale Norman Rowland Gale was a poet, story-teller and reviewer, who published many books over a period of nearly fifty years....
– Edmund Gosse
Edmund Gosse
Sir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic; the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes.-Early life:...
– 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....
– William Ernest Henley
William Ernest Henley
William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus".-Life and career:...
– Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...
– Herbert P. Horne – 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...
– Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...
– Eugene Lee-Hamilton
Eugene Lee-Hamilton
Eugene Lee-Hamilton was a late Victorian English poet. His work includes some notable sonnets in the style of Petrarch. He endowed a literary prize administered by Oriel College in Oxford University, where he was a student...
– Maurice Hewlett
Maurice Hewlett
Maurice Henry Hewlett , was an English historical novelist, poet and essayist. He was born at Weybridge, the eldest son of Henry Gay Hewlett, of Shaw Hall, Addington, Kent. He was educated at the London International College, Spring Grove, Isleworth, and was called to the bar in 1891. He gave up...
– Edward Cracroft Lefroy – Arran and Isla Leigh – Amy Levy
Amy Levy
- Biography :Levy was born in Clapham, London, the second daughter of Lewis Levy and Isobel Levin. Her Jewish family was mildly observant, but as an adult Levy no longer practised Judaism; she continued to identify with the Jews as a people....
– John William Mackail
John William Mackail
John William Mackail O.M. was a Scottish man of letters and socialist, now best remembered as a Virgil scholar. He was also a poet, literary historian and biographer....
– Digby Mackworth Dolben
Digby Mackworth Dolben
Digby Augustus Stewart Mackworth Dolben was an English poet who died young from drowning. He owes his poetic reputation to his cousin, Robert Bridges, poet laureate from 1913 to 1930, who edited a partial edition of his verse, Poems, in 1911.He was born in Guernsey, and brought up at Finedon Hall...
– Fiona MacLeod – Frank T. Marzials – Théophile Julius Henry Marzials – George Meredith
George Meredith
George Meredith, OM was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era.- Life :Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two...
– Alice Meynell
Alice Meynell
Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet.-Biography:...
– Cosmo Monkhouse – George Moore
George Moore
George Moore may refer to:*George Edward Moore , G.E. Moore, British philosopher*George Moore , Member of Parliament for Dublin City 1826–1831*George Moore , landowner and High Sheriff of Derbyshire...
– William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
– Frederick W. H. Myers – Roden Noël
Roden Noel
Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel, also known as Noël , was an English poet.The son of Charles Noel, Lord Barham, afterwards 1st Earl of Gainsborough, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained his M.A. in 1858. He then spent two years travelling in the East...
– John Payne
John Payne (poet)
John Payne was an English poet and translator, from Devon. Initially he pursued a legal career, and associated with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Later he became involved with limited edition publishing, and the Villon Society.He is now best known for his translations of Boccaccio's Decameron, The...
– Victor Plarr
Victor Plarr
Victor Gustave Plarr was an English poet; he is probably best known for the poem Epitaphium Citharistriae....
– A. Mary F. Robinson – William Caldwell Roscoe – Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...
– Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...
– Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
– John Addington Symonds
John Addington Symonds
John Addington Symonds was an English poet and literary critic. Although he married and had a family, he was an early advocate of male love , which he believed could include pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships. He referred to it as l'amour de l'impossible...
– Arthur Symons
Arthur Symons
Arthur William Symons , was a British poet, critic and magazine editor.-Life:Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy...
– Rachel Annand Taylor
Rachel Annand Taylor
Rachel Annand Taylor was a Scottish poet, biographer and literary critic.Born in Aberdeen to stonemason John Annand and his wife Clarinda Dinnie, she was one of the first women to study at Aberdeen University. She later taught at Aberdeen High School for Girls.As a writer she was admired by...
– Francis Thompson
Francis Thompson
Francis Thompson was an English poet and ascetic. After attending college, he moved to London to become a writer, but in menial work, became addicted to opium, and was a street vagrant for years. A married couple read his poetry and rescued him, publishing his first book, Poems in 1893...
– John Todhunter
John Todhunter
John Todhunter was an Irish poet and playwright who wrote seven volumes of poetry, and several plays.- Life :...
– Herbert Trench
Herbert Trench
Frederic Herbert Trench was an Irish poet.He was born in Avonmore, County Cork, and educated at Haileybury and Keble College, Oxford. From 1891 he worked as an examiner for the Board of Education....
– John Leicester Warren, Lord de Tabley – Rosamund Marriott Watson
Rosamund Marriott Watson
Rosamund Marriott Watson was a Victorian poet and critic who wrote under the pseudonym of Graham R. Tomson. Her poems, which presaged modernism, are informed by aestheticism and occasionally avant-garde sensibilities. Watson's personal life was fraught with scandal, she left first husband George...
– Theodore Watts-Dunton
Theodore Watts-Dunton
Theodore Watts-Dunton was an English critic and poet. He is often remembered as the friend and minder of Algernon Charles Swinburne, whom he rescued from alcoholism.-Birth and education:...
– Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
– Margaret L. Woods – Theodore Wratislaw – W. B. Yeats
External links
- Richard Aldington Papers, 1910-1962 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
- http://www.imagists.org/aldington/,http://www.imagists.org/aldington/biography.htmlBibliography at Imagists.org