John Gawsworth | Biography

The English lyric poet John Gawsworth enjoyed styling himself as a "man of letters" in the urbane, eclectic, nineteenth-century sense of the term. His prolific career as poet, poetry editor, and editor of short stories and essays (anthologies and individual collections)--as well as that of bibliographer and magazine editor--made a wide if not always deep impression. Gawsworth was an energetic literary leader of the second rank. He was also an eccentric, colorful public personage, claiming to be king of a mythical kingdom linked to the Caribbean island of Redonda, which he had never visited but promoted vividly in the press. Gawsworth yearned to be an immortal English poet but is more remembered today for his Redonda charade and his tireless advocacy of fantasy authors such as Arthur Machen and M. P. Shiel. Gawsworth has rightly been termed the English counterpart of American writer, fantasy editor, and publisher August Derleth.

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