Sir George Rostrevor Hamilton (1888 - 1967) was an English poet and critic. He worked as a civil servant and Special Commissioner. He was knighted in 1951.
He had a classical education at the University of Oxford, and later compiled anthologies of Latin and Greek verse for Nonesuch Press. He was a published war poet of World War I, known for A Cross in Flanders.
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two 'ancient universities' are frequently jointly called 'Oxbridge'. The history and influence of the University of Oxford has made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Nonesuch Press was a private press founded in 1922 in London by Francis Meynell, his second wife Vera Mendel, and their mutual friend David Garnett, co-owner of Birrell & Garnett's bookshop in Soho's Gerrard Street, in the basement of which building the press began.
A war poet is a poet who participates in a war and writes about his experiences, or a non-combatant who write poems about war. While the term is applied especially to those who served during World War I, the term can be applied to a poet of any nationality writing about any war, including Homer's Iliad, from around the 8th century BC, and the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, that celebrated the actual battle of 991, as well as poetry of the American and the Spanish Civil War, the Crimean War, etc.
His book The Tell-Tale Article on the Auden Group made an impact by the expedient of counting the proportion of definite articles in Auden's verse, remarking that it was much higher than in older styles. In general he was a steady conservative in matters of literature.
The Auden Group or the Auden Generation is a group of British and Irish writers active in the 1930s that included W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Cecil Day-Lewis, Stephen Spender, Christopher Isherwood, and sometimes Edward Upward and Rex Warner. They were sometimes called simply the Thirties poets.
Wystan Hugh Auden was an English-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content. He is best known for love poems such as "Funeral Blues", poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles", poems on cultural and psychological themes such as The Age of Anxiety, and poems on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae".
He was a director of the Poetry Book Society, Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature, and well connected as a correspondent of many literary and philosophical figures; including Walter de la Mare, C. S. Lewis, Wilfrid Meynell, Roy Fuller, Henri Bergson, E. R. Eddison and Owen Barfield.
The Poetry Book Society (PBS) was founded in 1953 by T. S. Eliot and friends, including Sir Basil Blackwell, "to propagate the art of poetry". Eric Walter White was secretary from December 1953 until 1971, and was subsequently the society's chairman. The PBS was chaired by Philip Larkin in the 1980s. Each quarter the Society selects one newly published collection of poetry as its "Choice" title for its members and makes four "Recommendations" for optional purchase. The Society also publishes the quarterly poetry journal, the PBS Bulletin, and until 2016 administered the annual T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Following the Poetry Society's instigation of its New Generation Poets promotion in 1994, the Poetry Book Society organised two subsequent "Next Generation Poets" promotions in 2004 and 2014. In 2016 the former Poetry Book Society charity which had managed the book club from 1953 had to be wound up, with its director Chris Holifield appointed as the new director of the T.S. Eliot Prize, and with its book club and company name taken over by book sales agency Inpress Ltd in Newcastle.
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to 'reward literary merit and excite literary talent'. The society is a cultural tenant at London's Somerset House.
Walter John de la Mare was a British poet, short story writer and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for a highly acclaimed selection of subtle psychological horror stories, amongst them "Seaton's Aunt" and "All Hallows".
