King's College, Cambridge

Biography
  • Tolley, A. T.. “Bell, Julian Heward (1908–1937).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
  • Bell, Julian. Winter Movement and Other Poems. London: Chatto and Windus, 1930. PR6003 .E434 W5 1930 E. J. Pratt Library at Victoria University
  • --. Work for the Winter and Other Poems. London: Hogarth Press, 1936. PR 6003 .E434W67 1936 Robarts Library
  • --. Essays, Poems, and Letters. Ed. by Quentin Bell. London: Hogarth Press, 1938. PR6003 .E434 1938A Robarts Library
  • --. Still Life and Other Poems. Woodside, C.A.: Occasional Press, 1987. PR6003 .E434 S7 1987 E. J. Pratt Library at Victoria University

Julian Heward Bell was born on 4 February 1908 to (Arthur) Clive Heward Bell (art critic and historian) and Vanessa Bell (artist, sister of Virginia Woolf). Growing up, Bell was surrounded by many of the important Bloomsbury figures. He received his education at Leighton Park School, and later at King's College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, his first book of poems Winter Movement (1930) was published. It was well received and was even compared to W. H. Auden's Poems, which was published in the same year. Despite the relative success of this collection and those which followed, Bell could not adequately fit in at either Cambridge or the Bloomsbury group into which he was born. His thesis was rejected despite the fact that Roger Fry, a close family friend, was one of its readers. In 1935 Bell accepted a position at the University of Wuhan, China. He returned before his contract was completed because like many other young intellectuals of his day, he was drawn to the conflict of the Spanish War and to the ideological stance taken by the side of the government. Due to the pacifist leanings of his family, Bell chose to enroll as an ambulance driver with the Spanish Medical Aid. He was wounded at Villanueva de la Cañada in the battle of Brunete on 18 July 1937 and taken to a military hospital where he died later that day.

Biography

Born April 24, 1862, to Mary Sidgwick and Edward White Benson, future archbishop of Canterbury (1882-1896), Arthur Christopher Benson became a popular essayist of Edwardian England, the librettist of England's beloved anthem, "Land of Hope and Glory," and the editor of Queen Victoria's letters. Benson received his education at Temple Grove School, East Sheen, at Eton 1874-81, and at King's College, Cambridge, 1881-84. He joined Eton in 1885 and until 1903, when he retired, was both well-liked schoolmaster and school historian. He published poetry from 1892 and essays from 1896. It was Benson's libretto for Elgar's "Coronation Ode" (1902), commissioned by the composer (perhaps at the instance of Edward VII), that brought the man of letters national fame. He left Eton in 1903 to co-edit Victoria's correspondence in 3 vols. (1907), for which he was made commander of the Royal Victorian Order. Benson then went to live in the Old Granary in Cambridge, in March 1906 to Hinton Hall at Haddenham, and last to Magdalene College, Cambridge, to which he was elected fellow in October 1904. Benson went on to become president of Magdalene in 1912 and Master in 1915. He suffered from hideous bouts of depression, first at Eton in 1882 and then in 1908-09, 1918, and 1922. In poems sometimes neglected in his later collections (such as "Courage"), Benson gave expression to this disabling trauma. He never married and was openly, if (it seems from his diaries) asexually, gay. On June 17, 1925, Benson died of a heart attack. He was remembered warmly every closing night of the London Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, which climaxed in a choric version of the patriotic "Land of Hope and Glory" -- audience joining in with performers -- until 2001, when it was withdrawn after objections from conscientious objectors to the Afghanistan war.

 

  • Benson, Arthur C. Le Cahier Jaune: Poems. Eton: George New, 1892. PR 4099 B5C2 Robarts Library
  • --. Coronation Ode, Set to Music by Edward Elgar: Book of Words. Notes by Joseph Bennett. London: Boosey, 1902. M 1533 .E38 OP. 44 Music Library
  • --. Hymns and Carols. Eton: Spottiswoode, 1907.
  • --. Lord Vyet and Other Poems. London and New York: John Lane, 1897. LE B474kz Robarts Library
  • --. Lyrics. London: John Lane, 1895. PR 4099 B5L8 Robarts Library
  • --. Monnow: An ode. Eton: Drake, 1896.
  • --. Ode in Memory of the Rt. Honble. William Ewart Gladstone. Eton: Drake [privately printed], 1898.
  • --. Ode to Japan. London: Chiswick Press, 1902.
  • --. Peace and Other Poems. London and New York: John Lane, 1905.
  • --. Poems. London: Elkin Matthews and John Lane, 1893. PR 4099 B5P6 1893 Robarts Library
  • --. The Poems of A. C. Benson. London and New York: John Lane, 1909. PR 4099 B5P6 1909 Robarts Library
  • --. The Professor and Other Poems. London and New York: John Lane, 1900. PR 4099 B5P7 Robarts Library
  • --. Selected Poems. London: John Lane the Bodley Head, 1924. PR 4099 B5S4 Robarts Library
  • --. Extracts from the letters of Dr. A.C. Benson to M.E.A. Ed. M.E. Allen. London: Jarrolds, 1926? PR 4099 .B5Z483 1926 Robarts Library
  •  
  • Hyam, R. “Benson, Arthur Christopher (1862-1925).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
  • Henry James: Letters to A.C. Benson and Auguste Monod. Ed. E.F. Benson. London: E. Mathews and Marrot, 1930. end J354 A175 1930a Fisher Rare Book Library
  • Newsome, David. On the Edge of Paradise: A. C. Benson, the Diarist. London: John Murray, 1980. PR 4099 B5Z79 1980 Robarts Library

The photograph of A. C. Benson was taken by A. H. Fry in 1899 and is published in The Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson, edited by Percy Lubbock (London: Hutchinson, [1926]).

Biography

Born September 5, 1861, Walter Alexander Raleigh received his education at the City of London School, Edinburgh Academy, University College London, and King's College Cambridge. His academic appointments were as Professor of English Literature at the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh (1885-87), Professor of Modern Literature at the University College Liverpool (1890-1900), Chair of English Language and Literature at Glasgow University (1900-1904), and Chair of English Literature at Oxford (1904-22). Until 1914, when he turned to the war as his subject, Raleigh published works on many major English authors. His finest book may be the first volume of The War in the Air (1922). He died from typhoid (contracted during a visit to the Near East) on May 13, 1922, survived by his wife Lucie Gertrude and their four sons and one daughter. His son Hilary edited his light prose, verse, and plays in Laughter from a Cloud (1923).

  • Jones, Henry Albert. Sir Walter Raleigh and the air history, a personal recollection. London: E. Arnold, 1922. D 602 .R342J6 Robarts Library
  • Raleigh, Walter Alexander. Robert Louis Stevenson. London: E. Arnold, 1895. end S749 Z6R33 1895 Fisher Rare Book Library. See www.netLibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summar.
  • --. England and the war, being sundry addresses delivered during the war and now first collected. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918. HMod R1634e Robarts Library
  • --. The English novel; a short sketch of its history from the earliest times to the appearance of Waverley. London: J. Murray, 1919. PR 821 .R2 1919 Robarts Library
  • --. The English voyages of the sixteenth century. Glasgow: Jackson, Wylie, 1926. G 242 .R35 1926 Robarts Library
  • --. Laughter from a cloud. Preface by Hilary Raleigh. London: Constable, 1923. PR 6035 .A4L3 Robarts Library
  • --. The letters (1879-1922). 2nd edn. Ed. Lady Raleigh. London: Methuen, 1928. CT/R138 Victoria College Library
  • --. The meaning of a University; an inaugural address delivered to the students of University College, Aberystwyth on the 20th of October, 1911. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911. Educat. Univ. O Robarts Library
  • --. Milton. London: E. Arnold, 1900. PR 3581 .R3 St. Michael's College Library
  • --. On writing and writers, by Walter Raleigh; being extracts from his note-books. London: E. Arnold, 1926. PR 99 .R34 Robarts Library
  • --. Poetry and fact : an inaugural address delivered at University College, Liverpool, March 13th, 1890. Liverpool: H. Young, 1890. PN 1031 .R34 Robarts Library
  • --. Romance: two lectures delivered at Princeton University, May 4th and 5th, 1915. Princeton: University Press, 1916. PR 447 .R37 1916 Robarts Library
  • --. Samuel Johnson: lecture delivered Cambridge, 22 February, 1907. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907. Pam/PR/J637Ra Victoria College Library
  • --. Shakespeare. London: Macmillan, 1909. PR 2894 .R3 1909 Robarts Library
  • --. Six essays on Johnson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910. PR 3533 .R35 Robarts Library
  • --. Some authors: a collection of literary essays, 1896-1916. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1923. PN 511 .R3 Victoria College Library
  • --. Some gains of the war; an address to the Royal Colonial Institute delivered Feb. 13, 1918. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918. Pamph HMod R Robarts Library
  • --. The study of English literature. Glasgow: Maclehose, 1900. Pamph LE R Robarts Library
  • --. Style. 3rd edn. London: Edward Arnold, 1898. PN 203 .R2 1898 Robarts Library. See www.netLibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summar
  • --. The war in the air; being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922-37. D 602 .R34 Robarts Library
  • --. The war of ideas: an address to the Royal colonial institute, delivered Dec. 12, 1916. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917. D 525 .R3 Robarts Library
  • --. Wordsworth. London: E. Arnold, 1903. PR 5881 .R27 1903 Victoria College Library
  • --. Shakespeare's England: an account of the life and manners of his age. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916. PR 2910 .S5 1916 Victoria College Library
  • Smith, D. Nichol. "Raleigh, Sir Walter Alexander." Dictionary of National Biography 1922-1937. 701-04.
Biography
  • Chernaik, Warren. "Waller, Edmund (1606–1687)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
Biography

The son of Sir James F. Stephen, a criminal court judge, and Mary Richenda Cunningham, James Kenneth Stephen, known as "Jem" to his friends, was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. He joined the secret, apparently homosexual society known as the Apostles, and became a Fellow of King's College in 1885, two years after being hired as tutor to Prince Albert Victor Edward, heir to the throne, who studied at Trinity College 1883-85. In 1888, by then a barrister and distanced from the royal family, Stephen founded a weekly journal The Reflector, but it lasted only for 17 numbers, although he had many literary friends (one of his cousins was Virginia Woolf) and had quickly acquired a reputation as a satirical poet. Stephen was committed to St. Andrew's Hospital, Northampton, in November 1891, suffering from mental illness, likely manic depression. He had struck his head in an accident at Felixstowe five years before--a point after which friends, Virginia Woolf included, began to interpret his behaviour as madness. After refusing all nourishment, Stephen died early February 1892, a few weeks after the prince he tutored. Arthur C. Benson's The Leaves of the Tree: Studies in Biography (London: Smith, Elder, 1911; CT 782 B3 Robarts Library) discusses Stephen's life; and David Abrahamson's Murder & Madness: the Secret Life of Jack the Ripper (London: Robson Books, 1992; HV 6535 G73 L653 1992 Robarts Library) transcribes Stephen's medical records. The claim that Stephen and the Prince were Jack the Ripper is based on weak circumstantial evidence and a psychoanalytic reading of his mysogynistic poems.

 

  • Smith, K. J. M.. "Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames, first baronet (1829–1894)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2012.
Degree
Index to poems
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.
Degree
Biography

Rupert Brooke was born August 3, 1887, at Rugby, Warwickshire, and educated there and at King's College, Cambridge, which he left with a degree in 1909. His first book of verse, Poems, came out in 1911. After studying briefly in Munich in 1912, he returned to live in England at the Old Vicarage in Grantchester, Cambridgeshire. The next year he travelled abroad in Canada, the United States, and the south seas, particularly Taihiti, where he loved a native woman named Taata Mata. At the start of War World I, Brooke joined the Hood Battalion of the British Naval Division and served in the attack on Antwerp. Over the winter he trained at Blandford Camp in Dorsetshire. His five famous war sonnets appeared in New Numbers in early 1915. They sold in such great quantity that the journal exhausted its war supply of paper and closed down. Brooke left by sea with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force for the Dandanelles in early 1915. At the rank of sub-lieutenant, he died of blood poisoning at sea near Scyros on April 23, 1915, and was buried there. His book, 1914 and Other Poems, was published posthumously in 1915. The nation canonized Brooke after his death, but history ultimately chose Wilfred Owen's anti-war lyrics over Brooke's patriotic war sonnets. This reaction has obscured his merits in poems such as "Heaven," "Tiare Tahiti," and "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester."

  • A Bibliography of Rupert Brooke, 3rd edn., comp. Geoffrey Keynes (London: R. Hart-Davis, 1964). Z 8122 .6 K4 1964 Victoria College Library
  • Brooke, Rupert. 1914 & other poems (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1915). PR 6003 R4N5 Robarts Library
  • --. "1914", Five sonnets (London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1915). PR 6003 R4N5 1915b Robarts Library
  • --. The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke: with a Memoir (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1918). end B766 A15 1918a Fisher Rare Book Library
  • --. Four poems: The fish, 1911. Grantchester, 1912. The dead, 1914. The soldier, 1914. Drafts and fair copies in the author's hand, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London: Scolar Press, 1974). end ovs B766 A155 Fisher Rare Book Library
  • --. Poems (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1911). end B766 A155 1911 Fisher Rare Book Library
  • --. Poetical works, 2nd edn., ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London: Faber and Faber, 1970). PR 6003 R4 1970 Robarts Library
  • --.The Letters of Rupert Brooke, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London: Faber and Faber, 1968). PR 6003 R4Z515 Robarts Library
  • Caesar, Adrian. “Brooke, Rupert Chawner (1887-1915).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
  • Hassall, Christopher. Rupert Brooke: A Biography (London: Faber and Faber, 1964). PR 6003 R4 Z67 Robarts Library
  • Hastings, Michael. Rupert Brooke (London: Michael Joseph, 1967). A fine book of photographs. PR 6003 R4Z68 Erindale College Library
  • Lehmann, John. Rupert Brooke, his Life and his Legend (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980). PR 6003 R4Z685 Robarts Library
  • New numbers (Ryton, Dymock, Gloucester: Crypt House Press, 1914). PR 500 N47 Robarts Library
  • Rupert Brooke in Canada, ed. Sandra Martin and Roger Hall (Toronto: PMA Books, 1978). FC 74 B78 1978 Robarts Library