Conquest, (George) Robert (Acworth)

(1917- )

   Born at Malvern, Worcestershire, the son of a wealthy American father and English mother, he was educated at Winchester College, the University of Grenoble, and graduated M.A. in 1972 from Magdalen College, Oxford. He was awarded a doctor of literature degree in 1975. After the war, in which he served in the Oxford and Buckingham Light Infantry, he joined the Foreign Office, was present in Bulgaria when the communists overthrew the government, then worked in the Information Research Department specializing in the Soviet Union. He became literary editor of the Spectator in 1963 and is the author of twenty books on the Soviet Union, including the classic The Great Terror (Macmillan, 1968). He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1995 and Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1996. He is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, California. Some of his poems: "747 (LondonChicago)," "Adriatic," "Aids to Composition," "Appalachian Convalescence," "Bagpipes at the Biltmore," "Guided Missiles Experimental Range," "On the Danube," "Seal Rocks: San Francisco," "The Agents."

   Sources: English and American Surrealist Poetry. Edward B. Germain, ed. Penguin Books, 1978. Robert Conquest, Biography (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/HISconquest.htm),. Biography of Robert Conquest (http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/conquest.html). New Lines: Poets of the 1950s: An Antholog y. Robert Conquest, ed. Macmillan, 1956 (http://homepages.wmich.edu/Conquest,{ (George) Robert{ (Acworth)cooneys/tchg/wby/new-lines.html). Poems on Poetry: The Mirror's Garland. Robert Wallace and James G. Taaffe, eds. E.P. Dutton, 1963. 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 Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005.