John Edgell Rickword (October 22, 1898 - March 15, 1982) was an English poet and critic, and journalist and literary editor. He became one of the leading communist intellectuals active in the 1930s. October 22 is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 70 days remaining. ... 1898 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... March 15 is the 74th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (75th in Leap years). ... 1982 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ...

He was born in Colchester, Essex. He served as an officer in the British Army in World War I, being awarded a Military Cross. He was a published war poet. Colchester town centre Colchester is an historic town in the north of the English county of Essex, with a population of about 160,000. ... Essex is an administrative county in the East of England. ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... Military Cross The Military Cross is a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army, and formerly also to officers of the armies of other Commonwealth countries, for distinguished and meritorious services in battle. ... The term war poet came into currency during and after World War I. A number of poets writing in English had been soldiers, and had written about that experience. ...

He went up to the University of Oxford in 1919, (where he knew Edmund Blunden, Vivian de Sola Pinto, A. E. Coppard, Louis Golding, and Alan Porter), staying only four terms reading French literature, and leaving when he married. He did, though, appear the Oxford Poetry 1921 anthology, with Blunden, Golding, Porter, Robert Graves, Richard Hughes, and Frank Prewett. The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Edmund Charles Blunden (November 1, 1896 - January 20, 1974) , although not one of the top trio of English World War I writers, was an important and influential poet, author and critic. ... Vivian de Sola Pinto (1895 - 1969) was a British poet, literary critic and historian. ... Alfred Edgar Coppard ( January 4 1878 – January 13, 1957) was an English writer, noted for his influence on the short story form, and poet. ... Louis Golding (November 19, 1895 – August 9, 1958) was a British writer, now best known for his novels; he wrote also short stories, essays, travel books and poetry. ... Anthology may also mean a Alien Ant Farm album ANThology, see Anthology (AAF Album) An anthology is a collection of literary works, originally of poems, but in recent years its usage has broadened to be applied to collections of short stories and comic strips. ... Portrait of Robert Graves (circa 1974) by Rab Shiell Robert von Ranke Graves (July 24, 1895–December 7, 1985) was an English scholar, best remembered for his work as a poet and novelist. ... Richard Arthur Warren Hughes (19 April 1900-28 April 1976) was a British professional writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays. ... Frank James Prewett (1893 - 1962) was a Canadian poet, who spent most of his life in the United Kingdom. ...

He then took up literary work in London. He reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement, which led to his celebrated review of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. J. C. Squire published him in the London Mercury, and Desmond MacCarthy as literary editor of the New Statesman gave him work. T.S. Eliot (by E.O. Hoppe, 1919) Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an Anglo-American poet, dramatist, and critic. ... T. S. Eliot (by E. O. Hoppe, 1919) The Waste Land is a highly influential 433-line poem by T. S. Eliot. ... For British late 20th century musician of the same name, see John Squire Sir John Squire (John Collings Squire) (1882–1958) was an English poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the post-World War I period. ... Sir Desmond MacCarthy (1878-1952) was an English critic, a member of the Bloomsbury group. MacCarthy was born in Plymouth, England, and educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. ... The New Statesman is a left-of-centre political weekly published in London. ...

He started the Calendar of Modern Letters literary review, now highly regarded, in March 1925. It lasted until July 1927, assisted by Douglas Garman and then Bertram Higgins, and contributions from his cousin C. H. Rickword. The Scrutinies books of collected pieces from it garnered some esteem, and had an undoubted influence: it was in some way a clear precursor of Scrutiny, the magazine founded a few years later by F. R. Leavis and Q. D. Leavis. Rickword also did write for that publication. Frank Raymond Leavis (July 14, 1895 - April 14, 1978) was an influential British literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. ... Q. D. (Queenie) Leavis (1906-1981), nee Roth, was an English literary critic and essayist. ...

He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in the early 1930s, and became increasingly active in political work during the period of the Spanish Civil War; while still writing poetry. He was friendly with Randall Swingler, the 'official' poetry voice of the CPGB, and with Jack Lindsay, his only real rival as a theoretician. He was closely connected with the leading cultural figures on the hard Left, such as Mulk Raj Anand, Ralph Fox, Julius Lipton, A. L. Morton, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Alick West. At that time he was a co-founder of the Left Review, which he edited. The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was a political party in the United Kingdom, which existed from 1920 to 1991. ... History of Spain series Prehistoric Spain Roman Spain Muslim Conquest of Iberia Timeline of Muslim Occupation Medieval Spain Age of Reconquest Age of Expansion Age of Enlightenment Reaction and Revolution First Spanish Republic The Restoration Second Spanish Republic Spanish Civil War The Dictatorship Modern Spain Topics Economic History Military History... Randall Swingler (May 28, 1909 – 1967) was an English poet, writing extensively in the 1930s in the communist interest. ... Robert Leeson Jack Lindsay (1900 - 1990) was an Australian-born writer, who from 1926 lived in the United Kingdom, initially in Essex. ... Mulk Raj Anand (December 12, 1905 - September 28, 2004) was an Indian English language author, who depicted the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. ... Ralph H. Fox was an American mathematician. ... (Arthur) Leslie Morton (1903 - 1987) was a prolific English Marxist historian. ... Sylvia Townsend Warner was an English writer and poet who lived from 1893 - 1978. ...

Later he became Editor of Our Time, the Communist review, from 1944 to 1947, working with David Holbrook. David Holbrook (born 1923) is a British writer, poet and academic. ...

Works

• Behind the Eyes (1921) poems
• Rimbaud: The Boy and the Poet (1924)
• Invocation to Angels (1928) poems
• Scrutinies By Various Writers (1928) editor
• Scrutinies Volume II (1931) editor
• Love One Another (1929) Mandrake Press
• Poet Under Saturn. The Tragedy of Verlaine by Marcel Coulon (1932) translator
• A handbook of freedom: a record of English democracy through twelve centuries (1939) Co-editor with Jack Lindsay
• Collected Poems (1947)
• Radical Squibs and Loyal Ripostes: a collection of satirical pamphlets of the Regency period 1819-1821 (1971) editor
• Essays and Opinions Volume 1: 1921-31
• Literature and Society: Essays and Opinions, vol.2 1931-1978 (1978)
• Twittingpan and Some Others (1981) poems
• Fifty Poems, A Selection by Edgell Rickword with Introduction by Roy Fuller

Robert Leeson Jack Lindsay (1900 - 1990) was an Australian-born writer, who from 1926 lived in the United Kingdom, initially in Essex. ... Roy Broadbent Fuller (11 February 1912 – 27 September 1991) was an English writer, known mostly as a poet. ...

Reference

• Edgell Rickword: A Poet at War (1989) by Charles Hobday, Carcanet Press

External links

A Conversation with Edgell Rickword The Calendar of Modern Letters, by Malcolm Bradbury