In his own mind John Drinkwater was foremost a poet, but it was through his work as dramatist, playwright, biographer, essayist, critic, editor, and lecturer that Drinkwater gained readers for his poetry. The uneducated John Drinkwater was welcomed into the literary circles of Birmingham and London. Though all of his life he was to dread the sight of a full set of utensils at his plate--having consciously to invoke etiquette and unobtrusively to wait for cues from fellow diners to remind him of the appropriate fork--though he was fifteen years old before he learned that all poets were not dead and that Swinburne was not a friend of Shakespeare's, and though he remained acutely conscious of his handicap in academic background and aesthetic training, Drinkwater maintained a pride in his heritage and a confidence in his own dignity. His acceptance by such distinguished Englishmen and Irishmen as Barry...