Albans, where Walter Williams, suffering from failing sight, opened a shop for artists' supplies. Williams attended St. Albans Grammar School, then began to commute daily to University College, London, where he studied Latin, French, and English history until a lack of family funds forced him to leave at eighteen. After four years assisting in the New Connexion Methodist Book-room in London and attending classes at the Working Men's College on Crowndale Road, Williams became a proofreader at Oxford University Press in 1908. In the same year he met Florence Conway, the daughter of a St. Albans ironmonger. In the context of their falling in love, Williams was set to proofing a translation of
The Divine Comedy: this coincidence of life and art was the germ of his great theme of the Beatrician vision.
With his first volume of poetry, The Silver Stair (1912), Williams's literary career began. In 1914 he was declared unfit for military service due to the persistent trembling of his hands; thus, in addition to missing the Oxbridge education of his literary peers, he also missed the profound initiation of the trenches. He married Florence (whom he dubbed "Michal") on 12 April 1917 in St.
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