Walter Sherard Vines was an English writer and academic who wrote poetry, novels, and criticism.

He was born in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 and educated at Magdalen College School

Magdalen College School, Oxford

Magdalen College School is an independent school for boys aged 7 to 18 and girls in the sixth form, located on The Plain in Oxford, England. It was founded as part of Magdalen College, Oxford by William Waynflete in 1480....

 and New College, Oxford

New College, Oxford

New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...

. He was published in Oxford Poetry, and took an academic position at Belfast University in 1914. 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...

 until 1917, when he was invalided out. Poems of his were included in the Sitwell

The Sitwells

The Sitwells , from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were three siblings, who formed an identifiable literary and artistic clique around themselves in London in the period roughly 1916 to 1930...

 Wheels anthologies. It was probably through Edmund Blunden

Edmund Blunden

Edmund Charles Blunden, MC was an English poet, author and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was also a reviewer for English publications and an academic in Tokyo and later Hong Kong...

 that he was published in The Nation (England)

Starting in 1923, he taught for five years at Keio University

Keio University

,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

 in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 where he was a colleague of Yone Noguchi

Yone Noguchi

Yone Noguchi, or Yonejirō Noguchi, born 野口 米次郎 / Noguchi Yonejirō , was an influential Japanese writer of poetry, fiction, essays, and literary criticism in both English and Japanese. He was the father of the sculptor Isamu Noguchi.-Early life:Noguchi was born in the town of Tsushima, near Nagoya...

. During that period he was for a time tutor to Prince Chichibu

Prince Chichibu

, also known as Prince Yasuhito, was the second son of Emperor Taishō and a younger brother of the Emperor Shōwa. As a member of the Imperial House of Japan, he was the patron of several sporting, medical, and international exchange organizations...

. He contributed while there to Edmund Blunden's Oriental Literary Times. In 1929 he was appointed as the first GF Grant Professor of English at the University College of Hull. He retired in 1952 and died on 12 April 1974.

Works

• The Two Worlds (1916) poems
• The Kaleidoscope (1921) poems
• The Pyramid (1926) poems
• A basic guide to English composition (1928) with G.B.Sansom
• Triforium (1928) poems
• Humours Unreconciled (1928) novel
• Movements In Modern English Poetry And Prose (1927) criticism
• The Course Of English Classicism From The Tudor To The Victorian Age (1930) criticism
• Yofuku: or Japan in Trousers (1931) travel
• Return, Belphegor! (1932) fantasy novel
• Whips and Scorpions: Specimens of Modern Satiric Verse 1914-1931 (1932) anthology
• Georgian Satirists (1934) criticism
• Green to Amber (1941) novel
• 100 Years Of English Literature (1950) criticism
• Antony and Cleopatra (The Warwick Shakespeare) editor with A. E. Morgan