John Drinkwater

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John Drinkwater (1 June 1882 - 25 March 1937) was an English poet and dramatist.

Life
He was born in Leytonstone, London, and worked as an insurance clerk. In the period immediately before World War I, he was one of the group of poets associated with the Gloucestershire village of Dymock, along with Rupert Brooke and others. Between 1912 and 1922, he published in the five Georgian Poetry anthologies.

In 1918, he scored his first major success with his play Abraham Lincoln. He followed it up with others in a similar vein, including Mary Stuart and Oliver Cromwell. He had published poetry since The Death of Leander in 1906; the first volume of his Collected Poems appeared in 1923. He also compiled anthologies and wrote literary criticism (e.g. Swinburne: an estimate (1913)), and later became manager of Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

He was married to Daisy Kennedy, the ex-wife of Benno Moiseiwitsch.

Papers relating to John Drinkwater and collected by his step daughter are held at the University of Birmingham Special Collections.

Recognition
His name was given to a towerblock on a 1960s council estate in Leytonstone.

Plays

 * Abraham Lincoln. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919.
 * Oliver Cromwell. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921.

Non-fiction

 * The Lyric: An Essay. 1922.

Audio
John Drinkwater made recordings in the Columbia Records 'International Educational Society' Lecture series. They include Lecture 10 - a lecture on 'The Speaking of Verse' (Four 78rpm sides, Cat no. D 40018-40019), and Lecture 70 'John Drinkwater reading his own poems' (Four 78rpm sides, Cat no. D 40140-40141).