Noyes, Alfred

(1880-1958)

   Born in Wolverhampton (West Midlands), the son of a teacher, he was educated on the classics at schools in Aberystwyth, Wales, and at Exeter College, Oxford, though he did not graduate. In 1913 he gave the Lowell lectures at Boston, Massachusetts, on The Sea in English Poetry, and from 1914 to 1923 he held the chair of modern English literature at Princeton University. He was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 1918. He challenged the authenticity of the diaries of Roger Casement (see entry) and stopped the public auction of a copy of Ulysses by James Joyce (see entry). He lived in Canada during World War II and lectured in the United States. By the age of seventy he was blind and returned to his home on the Isle of Wight, where he died. He received honorary degrees from four universities, three in America. Between his first volume of poetry, The Loom of Years (1902) and his death he published ten collections. Some of his poems: "A Song of Sherwood," "Daddy Fell into the Pond," "Love's Rosary," "The Barrel-organ," "The Butterfly Garden," "The Highwayman," "The World's May-Queen."

   Sources: A Sacrifice of Praise: An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon to the Mid-Twentieth Century. James H. Trott, ed. Cumberland House Publishing, 1999. Biography of Alfred Noyes (http://www3.shropshire292cc.gov.uk/noyes.htm). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Piping Down the Valley Wild: Poetry for the Young of All Ages, Nancy Larrick, ed. Delacorte Press, 1968. 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 Family Book of Verse. Lewis Gannett, ed. Harper and Row, 1961. The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes (http://www.imagesaustralia.com/poetryromantic.htm). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. New edition, revised and enlarged, Oxford University Press, 1939. The Oxford Book of Villains. John Mortimer, ed. Oxford University Press, 1992.