Teacher

Biography

Born November 5, 1884, in London, James Elroy Flecker received his education at Uppingham and Trinity College, Oxford. He joined the Consular Service in 1908, was posted to Constantinople in 1910, and he married Helle Skiadaressi, a Greek. From 1911 to 1913 Flecker served as vice-consul at Beirut. Suffering from tuberculosis, he moved to Switzerland where he died January 3, 1915. Influenced both by his classical education and by his experiences in the Orient, he published five books of poetry, The Bridge of Fire (1908), Thirty-six Poems (1910), Forty-two Poems (1911), The Golden Journey to Samarkand (1913), and The Old Ships (1915). He also brought out a novel, The King of Alsander (1914), and two sucessful plays of his, Hassan (1922) and Don Juan (1925), came out posthumously. The photograph of Flecker, taken in 1912 outside his house in Lebanon, comes from Geraldine Hodgson's The Life of James Elroy Flecker from Letters and Materials Provided by his Mother (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1925): frontispiece (PR 6011 L4Z69 Robarts Library).

Biography

Poet, translator, novelist, and man of letters, John Davidson spent the first part of his life as a teacher in Greenock, Glasgow, Perth, Crieff, and other places. In 1884 he married Margaret Macarthur, who bore him two sons. In 1899 he moved to London and earned a living by journalism. His second and third volumes of verse, Fleet Street Eclogues (1893), proved popular, established his reputation, and earned the respect of T. S. Eliot, who wrote a preface to a selection of Davidson's poems in 1961 edited by Maurice Lindsay (PR 4525 D5A17 1961 Robarts Library). Little after these books, whether poetry, novels, or translations, did well, and Davidson moved depended on his friends for support until getting a Civil List pension in 1906 and moving to Penzance a year later. The last half of his literary career was devoted to unsuccessful philosophical poems and tragedies promoting a new world order. Depressed and ill, Davidson committed suicide March 23, 1909, but his body was only found on the seashore months later. He was buried at sea on September 21, 1909. The best modern edition of his Poems is edited by Andrew Turnbull (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1973; PR 4525 D5A17 1973B Robarts Library). The best life is John Sloan's John Davidson, First of the Moderns (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995; PR 4525 D5Z82 Robarts Library).

Biography

Educator (his tenure as Assistant Master of Eton College lasted from 1845 to 1872) and author of A Guide to Modern British History (New York: Holt, 1880-82), William Johnson became William Johnson Cory after his retirement. A brief biography appears in the third edition of Ionica, his translation of classical poems, as edited by Arthur C. Benson (London: G. Allen, 1905; PR 4507 C57I6 1905 Robarts Library). Francis Warre Cornish edited a very large volume of Extracts from Letters and Journals (Oxford, 1907; Educat. B C Robarts Library).

  • Card, Tim. “Cory, William Johnson (1823-1892).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
Biography
  • McGowran, Katharine. “Coleridge, Mary Elizabeth (1861-1907).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
Biography
  • The Poems of John Cleveland. Ed. Brian Morris and Eleanor Withington. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
  • Cousins, A. D.. “Cleveland, John (bap. 1613, d. 1658).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
Biography
  • The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill Ed. Douglas Grant. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.
  • Sambrook, James. “Churchill, Charles (1732-1764).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
Biography
  • Barker, Juliet. “Brontë, Emily Jane (1818-1848).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
Biography
  • Alexander, Christine. “Brontë , Charlotte (1816-1855).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.