Journalist

George Elliott Clarke is the E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. His works include the poem-novel, Whylah Falls (1990), the narrative lyric sequence, Execution Poems (2001), and the verse-play and opera, Beatrice Chancy (1999). Clarke's awards include the Governor-General's Award for Poetry (2001), a Bellagio (Italy) Center Fellowship (1998), and the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry (2002). He has also published a major critical book, Odysseys Home: Mapping African-Canadian Literature (University of Toronto Press, Summer 2002).

He is a member of the Black Cultural Society of Nova Scotia, the League of Canadian Poets, the Modern Languages Association, the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, the Writer's Guild of Canada, and the Writers Union of Canada.

• Blue. Vancouver: Polestar Book Publishers, 2001.
• Beatrice Chancy. Victoria, BC: Polestar Book Publishers, 1999.
• Execution Poems. Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 2001.
• Lush Dreams, Blue Exile. Lawrencetown Beach, NS: Pottersfield Press, 1983.
• Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues. Porters Lake, NS: Pottersfield Press, 1983.
• Whylah Falls. Vancouver: Polestar Book Publishers, 1990.

Sources:

• Canadian Who's Who 2003 Vol. XXXVIII
• Clarke, George Elliott. Whylah Falls. Polestar, 1990.

• Morris, George P. Poems. New York: Charles Scribner, 1860.
• --. The Deserted Bride and Other Poems. New York: Adlard & Saunders, 1838.
• --. The Whip-poor-will. 1843.
• --. The Songs and Ballads of George P. Morris. New York: Cady & Burgess, 1852 [ca. 1845].
• --. Poems by George P. Morris. 1853.
• Barnard, Philip. "Morris, George Pope." American National Biography Online. American Council of Learned Societies: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Born November 15, 1881, Franklin P. Adams worked for forty years as a leading New York newspaper daily columnist and wit penning light verse and a weekly diary that amused a large and literate audience. A few years after graduating from the Armour Scientific Academy in Chicago in 1899, Adams first entered journalism in Chicago. Then, moving to New York, Adams successfully published mass-market light verse up to the 1940s. He knew everyone in the literary world and even became a mentor to Dorothy Parker. Adams' columns, named "Always in Good Humour" and "The Conning Tower," came out in the New York Tribune, the New York World, the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Post. During World War I he served in France as a captain in the US Intelligence Service. He married Minna Schwartze in 1904 and, after a divorce, Esther Sayles Root in 1925. Adams died in March 23, 1960, survived by his widow and four children. Adams' books of verse include the following:

• Adams, Franklin P. In Cupid's Court. Evanston, Ill.: Lord, 1902.
• --. Tobogganning on Parnassus. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1911. LE A2121t Robarts Library
• --. In Other Words. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1912. LE A212li Robarts Library
• --. By and Large. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1914. PS 3501 D24 B8 1914 SC103E1 York University
• --. Weights and Measures. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1917. LE A2121w Robarts Library
• --. Among Us Mortals. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1917. PN 6161 H53 York University
• --. Something Else Again. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1920. Toronto Reference Library
• --. Overset. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1922.
• --. So There!. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1923.
• --. So Much Velvet. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1924. PS3501 .D24 S46 Robarts Library
• --. Half a Loaf. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1927.
• --. Christopher Columbus and Other Patriotic Verses. New York: Viking, 1931. Toronto Reference Library
• --. The Melancholy Lute: Selected Songs of Thirty Years. New York: Viking, 1936. PS 3501 D24 M4 1936 SC103E3 York University
• --. Nods and Becks. London & New York: McGraw-Hill, 1944. PS 3501 D24 N6 SC103E3 York University
• Ashley, Sally. The Life and Times of Franklin Pierce Adams. New York: Beaufort Books, 1986.
• Gale, Robert L. "Adams, Franklin P." American Biographical Dictionary Online. American Council of Learned Societies: Oxford University Press, 2000.

William Knox was born August 17, 1789, in Lillieslief, Roxburghshire, and educated there and at Loretto Academy in Musselburgh. He took up farming from his parents but abandoned it for journalism, and especially poetry. He brought out three volumes of verse, The Lonely Hearth, and Other Poems (North Shields, 1818), The Songs of Israel (Edinburgh, 1824), and The Harp of Zion (Edinburgh, April 1825). Robert Southey, an early acquaintance, thought well of Knox's writings, but his greatest admirer was Abraham Lincoln, the American President, who committed Knox's poem "Mortality"
(1824) to memory in 1831 and made it famous in America. Knox
died of a stroke at Leith on November 12, 1825.

• William Knox. The Lonely Hearth, the Songs of Israel, Harp of Sion, and Other Poems. London: John Johnstone, 1847. In Maurice Boyd's William Knox
  and Abraham Lincoln: The Story of a Poetic Legacy (Denver: Sage Books, 1966). PR 4859 K6A17 Robarts Library

Thomas William Hodgson Crosland was born in Leeds on July 21, 1865. He was among the most acerbic men of letters and journalists of his lifetime. An anti-Scottish Tory and Monarchist, a Methodist, Crosland earned his living as a Fleet Street reviewer, critic, and editor for journals like The Outlook, The Academy, and the Penny Illustrated Paper. A close friend of Lord Alfred Douglas, Crosland was notorious for his bitter attack on the Oscar Wilde who wrote De Profundis. His poems, in volumes such as Sonnets (1912), War Poems by X (1916), and Collected Poems (1917), reveal sympathy for the downtrodden, the English soldier, and the sick. A sufferer from diabetes and heart ailments for much of his middle age, he died on December 23, 1924, and was buried in the Finchley and St Mary-le-Bone Cemetery, London. He was survived by his wife Annie Moore and one son, John.

• Brown, W. Sorley. The Life and Genius of T. W. H. Crosland. London: Cecil Palmer, 1928. PR 4518 C686Z6 1928 Robarts Library
• Crosland, T. W. H. The Absent-minded Mule, and other Occasional Verses. London: the Sign of the Unicorn, 1899. end C768 A28 1899 Fisher Rare Book Library
• --. The Collected Poems of T.W.H. Crosland. London: M. Secker, 1917. PR 4518 .C686A17 Robarts Library
• --. The Finer Spirit, and other Poems. London: the Sign of the Unicorn, 1900. end C768 F557 1900
• --. Last Poems. London: Fortune Press, 1928. end C768 A155 1928 Fisher Rare Book Library
• --. Outlook Odes. London: the Sign of the Unicorn, 1902. end C768 O88 1902 Fisher Rare Book Library
• --. Sonnets. London: J. Richmond, 1912. end C768 A155 1912 Fisher Rare Book Library
• --. War Poems, by "X". London: M. Secker [1916]. PR 4518 .C686W3 1916 Robarts Library

Born June 3, 1771, Sydney Smith was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, where he took a B.A. in 1792 and an M.A. in 1796. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1796 and became a curate in Nether Avon, near Amesbury. Moving to Edinburgh as a tutor, Smith published his first book of sermons and married Catharine Amelia Pybus. During this period he co-founded and edited the Edinburgh Review, to which he contributed much of his life. By 1803 the Smiths had gone to London, where he achieved a reputation as an outstandingly witty preacher at such places as Berkeley Chapel, Mayfair, the Foundling Hospital, and the Fitzroy Chapel. He lectured on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution from 1804 to 1806 and wrote his best-known work, Peter Plymley's Letters, on legalizing Roman Catholic worship. He served as priest at and lived near Foston-le-Clay, Yorkshire, in 1809, moved to Bristol to become a prebend in its cathedral in 1828, and three years later returned to London to take up a canonry at St Paul’s Cathedral. Besides his sermons and philosophic lectures, Smith's fame rests on his letters, and among them we find his occasional verse. He died at Green Street, London, on February 22, 1845, and interred at Kensal Green.

Charles William Shirley Brooks was born on 29 April, 1816 at 52 Doughty Street, London. The son of Elizabeth and William Brooks (an architect), he was articled to his uncle Charles Sabine of Oswestry after receiving his early education. In 1938, he passed the Incorporated Law Society's examination, but there is no record of Brooks becoming a solicitor. Brooks began his writing career in 1842 as a journalist for Ainsworth's Magazine. From 1848 to 1952 he worked as a parliamentary correspondent for the Morning Chronicle. Apart from his journalistic endeavors, Brooks also wrote drama, often quite successfully. His first play, The Creole, or, Love's Fetters, was very well received when it premiered at the Lyceum in 1847. In total, Brooks wrote nine plays, which varied in genre from farce and comedy to drama. During the 1850s and 1860s, while continuing his work for the leading periodicals, Brooks also turned to writing novels. These included Aspen Court: a Story of our Own Time (1855), Gordian Knot (1860) and Sooner or Later (3 vols., 1966-8). Nevertheless, Shirley Brooks is most remembered as a regular contributor to Punch, from 1851 on. His writing was well received, particularly his witty parliamentary commentary. His dedication to the publication allowed Brooks to become editor of the journal in 1870. He continued his work for Punch until his death on 14 march, 1872.

• Boase, G. C. “Brooks, Charles William Shirley (1816-1874).” Rev. H. C. G. Matthew. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.