Squire, Sir John Collings

(1884-1958)

   Born at Plymouth, the son of a veterinary surgeon, he graduated in history from St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1905. He worked as a journalist in Plymouth and in London and in 1913 became literary editor of the newly founded New Statesman, and as "Solomon Eagle" his critical essays were popular and were later published in three volumes titled Books in General (1918-1921). His Collected Parodies were published in 1921; his contributions to the Sunday Observer were published in Sunday Mornings (1930). His small book of poems The Survival of the Fittest (1916) was probably the earliest poetic protest against the war to win much attention in England. In 1919 he established the monthly magazine London Mercury, encouraged by many poets. He edited Book of Women's Verse (1921), the Comic Muse (1925), Cambridge Book of Lesser Poets (1927). Between 1921 and 1934 he edited three volumes of Selections from Modern Poets. He died at Rushlake Green, East Sussex. Some of his poems: "1914," "Anarchy," "Approaching America," "Country Wooing," "Fen Landscape," "The Birds," "The Handsacross-the-Sea Poem," "The Swallow," "Wars and Rumours, 1920."

   Sources: An Anthology of Revolutionary Poetry. Marcus Graham, ed. The Active Press, 1929. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Poems, Second Series by John Collings Squire. William Heinemann Ltd., 1921. The Brand-X Anthology of Poetry. William Zaranka, ed. Apple-Wood Books, 1981. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of English History in Verse. Kenneth Baker, ed. Faber and Faber, 1988. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Penguin Book of Bird Poetry. Peggy Munsterberg, ed. 1984.