Robert Nye
Encyclopedia
Robert Nye FRSL is an English poet who has also written novels and plays as well as stories for children. His bestselling novel Falstaff published in 1976 was described by Michael Ratcliffe (writing in the Times) as 'one of the most ambitious and seductive novels of the decade,' and went on to win both The Hawthornden Prize and Guardian Prize for fiction. The novel was also included in Anthony Burgess
's '99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939' (1984).
in 1939. His father was a civil servant, his mother a farmer's daughter. He attended Southend High School for Boys
and had published his first poem 'Kingfisher' in the London Magazine
(September 1955; Volume 2, Number 9) by the age of sixteen. He left school in 1955 and did not pursue additional formal study. Nye's poetry has appeared in a number of important literary magazines including The Atlantic Monthly, Encounter and The Listener. The 1964 Fall and Winter issues of the Canadian publication The Fiddlehead contained respectively fifteen and eighteen of his poems.
He was a conscientious objector
during National Service
in the late 1950s, and was given exemption from military service conditional upon joining the Friends' Ambulance Unit
and serving as a medical orderly at St Wulstan's Sanitorium, near Malvern
, and then at Rochford
General Hospital in Essex
.
Between 1955 and 1961, he worked at a variety of jobs: newspaper reporter, milkman, postman, labourer in a market garden, and orderly in a sanitorium.
Nye married his first wife, Judith Pratt, in 1959. In 1961, they moved to a remote cottage in North Wales where Nye devoted himself full-time to writing. There he developed an interest in Welsh and Celtic legends reflected later in his fiction for both adults and children.
His first book, Juvenilia 1 (1961), was a collection of poems. A second volume, Juvenilia 2 (1963), won the Eric Gregory Award. Both volumes were enthusiastically received and Martin Seymour- Smith described Nye as showing a 'precocity unique in this century.' This view was supported by G.S Fraser who in an article in The Times Literary Supplement convincingly established an affinity between Nye's early poetry and that of Robert Graves
To support his continuance as a poet, Nye began to contribute reviews to British literary journals and newspapers. He became the poetry editor for The Scotsman
in 1967, and served as poetry critic of The Times
from 1971 to 1996, while also contributing regular reviews of new fiction to The Guardian
.
Nye started writing stories for children to entertain his three young sons. His children's novel Taliesin and a collection of stories called March Has Horse's Ears were published by Faber and Faber
in 1966. When Nye published his first adult novel, Doubtfire (1967), it was described by P.J. Kavanagh as 'breathless' and 'brilliant', Kavanagh also referred to the author's "love affair with rhythms and language". That same year Nye divorced his first wife. A year later he married Aileen Campbell, an artist and analytical psychologist, who provided the illustrations for Bee Hunter: Adventures of Beowulf and was an inspiration for some of Nye's most personal poetry of the time (notably 'In More's Hotel'). Campbell also designed the masks used in the 1973 performance of one of the author's more unusual projects, The Seven Deadly Sins (1974). The two moved to Edinburgh
where they lived until 1977.
Nye's next publication after Doubtfire was a return to children's literature, a freewheeling version of Beowulf
which has remained in print in many editions since 1968. In 1970, he published another children's book, Wishing Gold, and received the James Kennaway Memorial Award for his collection of short stories, Tales I Told My Mother (1969).
During the early 1970s Nye wrote several plays for BBC
radio including A Bloody Stupid Hole (1970), Reynolds, Reynolds(1971), and a version of Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist
(1971). He was also commissioned by Covent Garden Opera House to write an unpublished libretto for Harrison Birtwistle
's opera, Kronia
(1970). Nye held the position of writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh
, 1976–1977, during which time he received the Guardian fiction prize, followed by the 1976 Hawthornden Prize
for his novel Falstaff.
1978 saw the publication of his Merlin excursion into the Matter of Britain
, equally convincing as romance or poetry or drug-induced hallucination. In 1990 Nye's novel The Life and Death of My Lord Gilles de Rais was published by Hamish Hamilton
which many consider to be the author's masterpiece. The novel reportedly took only sixty days to write but represented the author's final release from a 35 year obsession with the story of Joan of Arc and her first Marshall of France. The seeds of the book can be found in the poem The Mystery of the Siege of Orleans first published in 1961 and in Nye's first novel Doubtfire. Allan Massie
reviewing the novel for 'The Scotsman' concluded that The Life and Death of My Lord Gilles de Rais is a work of learning, wit and humanity....its understanding of depravity is extraordinary, the judgement impeccable...It is I think, the book he has worked all his life to write, and it is perfectly done; yes indeed a masterpiece.'
Robert Nye has continued to write poetry, publishing Darker Ends (1969) which launched Calder and Boyars' 'Signature Series' later to include such authors as Samuel Beckett
and Edward Dahlberg
, and Divisions on a Ground (1976), and to prepare editions of other poets with whose work he feels an affinity: Sir Walter Ralegh, William Barnes
, and Laura Riding
. His own Collected Poems appeared in 1995, and remains in print. His selected poems, entitled The Rain and The Glass, published in 2005, won the Cholmondeley Award
. He has lived since 1977 in County Cork
. Although his novels have won prizes and been translated into many languages, it is as a poet that he would probably prefer to be remembered. The critic Gabriel Josipovici
has described him as "one of the most interesting poets writing today, with a voice unlike that of any of his contemporaries."
Juvenilia 2 (1963)
Darker Ends (1969)
Two Prayers (1973)
Agnus Dei (1973)
Five Dreams (1973)
Divisions on a Ground (1976)
A Collection of Poems 1955 - 1988 (1989)
14 Poemes (1994)
Henry James and Other Poems (1995)
Collected Poems (1996)
16 Poems (2005)
The Rain and the Glass: 99 Poems, New and Selected (2005)
Falstaff (1976)
Merlin (1978)
Faust (1980)
The Voyage of the Destiny (1982)
The Memoirs of Lord Byron (1989)
The Life and Death of My Lord Gilles de Rais (1990)
Mrs. Shakespeare: The Complete Works (1993)
The Late Mr Shakespeare (1998)
The Facts of Life and Other Fictions (1983)
Taliesin (1966)
Bee Hunter: Adventures of Beowulf (1968)
Wishing Gold (1970)
Poor Pumpkin (1971) - Illustrated by Derek Collard
Once Upon Three Times (1978)
The Bird of the Golden Land (1980)
Harry Pay the Pirate (1981)
Lord Fox and Other Spine-Chilling Tales (1997)
] (1970)
The Seven Deadly Sins, A Mask (1974)
Penthesilea, Fugue, and Sisters (1976)
William Barnes, Selected Poems (1973)
A Choice of Swinburne's Verse (1973)
The Faber Book of Sonnets (1976)
The English Sermon 1750-1850 (1976)
PEN New Poetry 1 (1986)
First Awakenings: The Early Poems of Laura Riding (1992)
A Selection of the Poems of Laura Riding (1994)
Some Poems by Ernest Dowson (2006)
Some Poems by Thomas Chatterton (2008)
Some Poems by Clere Parsons (2008)
The Liquid Rhinoceros and Other Uncollected Poems by Martin Seymour-Smith (2009)
Some Poems by James Reeves (2009)
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
's '99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939' (1984).
Biography
Robert Nye was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1939. His father was a civil servant, his mother a farmer's daughter. He attended Southend High School for Boys
Southend High School for Boys
Southend High School for Boys, also known by its acronym SHSB, is a selective secondary Academy Grammar school along Prittlewell Chase in Prittlewell, in the north-west of Southend-on-Sea, England, south-west of the roundabout of the A127 and A1159...
and had published his first poem 'Kingfisher' in the London Magazine
London Magazine
The London Magazine is a historied publication of arts, literature and miscellaneous interests. Its history ranges nearly three centuries and several reincarnations, publishing the likes of William Wordsworth, William S...
(September 1955; Volume 2, Number 9) by the age of sixteen. He left school in 1955 and did not pursue additional formal study. Nye's poetry has appeared in a number of important literary magazines including The Atlantic Monthly, Encounter and The Listener. The 1964 Fall and Winter issues of the Canadian publication The Fiddlehead contained respectively fifteen and eighteen of his poems.
He was a conscientious objector
Conscientious objector
A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....
during National Service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
in the late 1950s, and was given exemption from military service conditional upon joining the Friends' Ambulance Unit
Friends' Ambulance Unit
The Friends' Ambulance Unit was a volunteer ambulance service, founded by individual members of the British Religious Society of Friends , in line with their Peace Testimony. The FAU operated from 1914–1919, 1939–1946 and 1946-1959 in 25 different countries around the world...
and serving as a medical orderly at St Wulstan's Sanitorium, near Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...
, and then at Rochford
Rochford
Rochford is a small town in the Rochford district of Essex in the East of England. It is sited about 43 miles from Central London and approximately 21 miles from the Essex county town, Chelmsford...
General Hospital 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...
.
Between 1955 and 1961, he worked at a variety of jobs: newspaper reporter, milkman, postman, labourer in a market garden, and orderly in a sanitorium.
Nye married his first wife, Judith Pratt, in 1959. In 1961, they moved to a remote cottage in North Wales where Nye devoted himself full-time to writing. There he developed an interest in Welsh and Celtic legends reflected later in his fiction for both adults and children.
His first book, Juvenilia 1 (1961), was a collection of poems. A second volume, Juvenilia 2 (1963), won the Eric Gregory Award. Both volumes were enthusiastically received and Martin Seymour- Smith described Nye as showing a 'precocity unique in this century.' This view was supported by G.S Fraser who in an article in The Times Literary Supplement convincingly established an affinity between Nye's early poetry and that of Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
To support his continuance as a poet, Nye began to contribute reviews to British literary journals and newspapers. He became the poetry editor for The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
in 1967, and served as poetry critic of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
from 1971 to 1996, while also contributing regular reviews of new fiction to The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
.
Nye started writing stories for children to entertain his three young sons. His children's novel Taliesin and a collection of stories called March Has Horse's Ears were published by Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
in 1966. When Nye published his first adult novel, Doubtfire (1967), it was described by P.J. Kavanagh as 'breathless' and 'brilliant', Kavanagh also referred to the author's "love affair with rhythms and language". That same year Nye divorced his first wife. A year later he married Aileen Campbell, an artist and analytical psychologist, who provided the illustrations for Bee Hunter: Adventures of Beowulf and was an inspiration for some of Nye's most personal poetry of the time (notably 'In More's Hotel'). Campbell also designed the masks used in the 1973 performance of one of the author's more unusual projects, The Seven Deadly Sins (1974). The two moved to Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
where they lived until 1977.
Nye's next publication after Doubtfire was a return to children's literature, a freewheeling version of Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
which has remained in print in many editions since 1968. In 1970, he published another children's book, Wishing Gold, and received the James Kennaway Memorial Award for his collection of short stories, Tales I Told My Mother (1969).
During the early 1970s Nye wrote several plays for BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio including A Bloody Stupid Hole (1970), Reynolds, Reynolds(1971), and a version of Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him.- Life :...
(1971). He was also commissioned by Covent Garden Opera House to write an unpublished libretto for Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
's opera, Kronia
Kronia
In Athens, on the twelfth day of the month of Hekatombaion, a festival called Kronia was held in honour of Cronus, a god of agriculture, and to celebrate the harvest....
(1970). Nye held the position of writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
, 1976–1977, during which time he received the Guardian fiction prize, followed by the 1976 Hawthornden Prize
Hawthornden Prize
The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender. Authors are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature" which can be written in either poetry or prose...
for his novel Falstaff.
1978 saw the publication of his Merlin excursion into the Matter of Britain
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
, equally convincing as romance or poetry or drug-induced hallucination. In 1990 Nye's novel The Life and Death of My Lord Gilles de Rais was published by Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton
Hamish Hamilton Limited was a British book publishing house, founded in 1931 eponymously by the half-Scot half-American Jamie Hamilton . Confusingly, Jamie Hamilton was often referred to as Hamish Hamilton...
which many consider to be the author's masterpiece. The novel reportedly took only sixty days to write but represented the author's final release from a 35 year obsession with the story of Joan of Arc and her first Marshall of France. The seeds of the book can be found in the poem The Mystery of the Siege of Orleans first published in 1961 and in Nye's first novel Doubtfire. Allan Massie
Allan Massie
Allan Massie is a well-known Scottish journalist, sports writer and novelist.-Early life:Born in 1938 in Singapore, where his father was a rubber planter for Sime Darby, Massie spent his childhood in Aberdeenshire...
reviewing the novel for 'The Scotsman' concluded that The Life and Death of My Lord Gilles de Rais is a work of learning, wit and humanity....its understanding of depravity is extraordinary, the judgement impeccable...It is I think, the book he has worked all his life to write, and it is perfectly done; yes indeed a masterpiece.'
Robert Nye has continued to write poetry, publishing Darker Ends (1969) which launched Calder and Boyars' 'Signature Series' later to include such authors as Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
and Edward Dahlberg
Edward Dahlberg
Edward Dahlberg was an American novelist, essayist and autobiographer. -Background:Edward Dahlberg was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Elizabeth Dahlberg. Together mother and son led a vagabond existence, until 1905 when she operated the Star Lady Barbershop in Kansas City...
, and Divisions on a Ground (1976), and to prepare editions of other poets with whose work he feels an affinity: Sir Walter Ralegh, William Barnes
William Barnes
William Barnes was an English writer, poet, minister, and philologist. He wrote over 800 poems, some in Dorset dialect and much other work including a comprehensive English grammar quoting from more than 70 different languages.-Life:He was born at Rushay in the parish of Bagber, Dorset, the son of...
, and Laura Riding
Laura Riding
Laura Jackson was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer.- Early life :...
. His own Collected Poems appeared in 1995, and remains in print. His selected poems, entitled The Rain and The Glass, published in 2005, won the Cholmondeley Award
Cholmondeley Award
The Cholmondeley Award is an annual award for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the late Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966...
. He has lived since 1977 in County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
. Although his novels have won prizes and been translated into many languages, it is as a poet that he would probably prefer to be remembered. The critic Gabriel Josipovici
Gabriel Josipovici
Gabriel David Josipovici FBA, FRSL is a British novelist, short story writer, critic, literary theorist, and playwright.-Biography:...
has described him as "one of the most interesting poets writing today, with a voice unlike that of any of his contemporaries."
Poetry
Juvenilia 1 (1961)Juvenilia 2 (1963)
Darker Ends (1969)
Two Prayers (1973)
Agnus Dei (1973)
Five Dreams (1973)
Divisions on a Ground (1976)
A Collection of Poems 1955 - 1988 (1989)
14 Poemes (1994)
Henry James and Other Poems (1995)
Collected Poems (1996)
16 Poems (2005)
The Rain and the Glass: 99 Poems, New and Selected (2005)
Novels
Doubtfire (1967)Falstaff (1976)
Merlin (1978)
Faust (1980)
The Voyage of the Destiny (1982)
The Memoirs of Lord Byron (1989)
The Life and Death of My Lord Gilles de Rais (1990)
Mrs. Shakespeare: The Complete Works (1993)
The Late Mr Shakespeare (1998)
Story collections
Tales I Told My Mother 1969)The Facts of Life and Other Fictions (1983)
Stories for children
March Has Horse's Ears (1966)Taliesin (1966)
Bee Hunter: Adventures of Beowulf (1968)
Wishing Gold (1970)
Poor Pumpkin (1971) - Illustrated by Derek Collard
Once Upon Three Times (1978)
The Bird of the Golden Land (1980)
Harry Pay the Pirate (1981)
Lord Fox and Other Spine-Chilling Tales (1997)
Plays
Sawney Bean [with Bill WatsonWilliam Watson (writer)
William Watson was a Scottish author, playwright and newspaper editor. He was initially Literary and then Features editor of the Scotsman newspaper....
] (1970)
The Seven Deadly Sins, A Mask (1974)
Penthesilea, Fugue, and Sisters (1976)
Editions
A Choice of Sir Walter Ralegh's Verse (1972)William Barnes, Selected Poems (1973)
A Choice of Swinburne's Verse (1973)
The Faber Book of Sonnets (1976)
The English Sermon 1750-1850 (1976)
PEN New Poetry 1 (1986)
First Awakenings: The Early Poems of Laura Riding (1992)
A Selection of the Poems of Laura Riding (1994)
Some Poems by Ernest Dowson (2006)
Some Poems by Thomas Chatterton (2008)
Some Poems by Clere Parsons (2008)
The Liquid Rhinoceros and Other Uncollected Poems by Martin Seymour-Smith (2009)
Some Poems by James Reeves (2009)
External links
- Fantastic Fiction page
- Fan bibliography
- Robert Nye: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00101.xml