Georgian Poetry

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Georgian Poetry was the title of a series of anthologies showcasing the work of a school of English poetry that established itself during the early years of the reign of King George V of the United Kingdom.

Edward Marsh was the general editor of the series and the centre of the circle of Georgian poets, which included Rupert Brooke. It has been suggested that Brooke himself took a hand in some of the editorial choices.

History
The idea for an anthology began as a joke, when Marsh, Duncan Grant and George Mallory decided, one evening in 1912 to publish a parody of the many small poetry books that were appearing at the time. After some discussion it was decided to pursue the idea in all seriousness. Marsh and Brooke approached the poet and bookseller Harold Monro who had recently opened The Poetry Bookshop at Devonshire Street, London. He agreed to publish the book in return for a half share of the profits.

Subsequent to the final anthology of five, further collections appeared edited by J.C. Squire, which were probably intended to take on the mantle. The subsequent fate of the Georgian poets (inevitably known as the Squirearchy) then became an aspect of the critical debate surrounding modernist poetry, as marked by the publication of The Waste Land at just that time. The Georgian poets became something of a by-word for conservatism, but at the time of the early anthologies they saw themselves as modern (if not modernist) and progressive. The most important figures, in literary terms, would now be considered D.H. Lawrence and Robert Graves: neither of them 'typical'.

Georgian Poetry 1911-12 (1912)
Lascelles Abercrombie - Gordon Bottomley - Rupert Brooke - G.K. Chesterton - W.H. Davies - Walter de la Mare - John Drinkwater - James Elroy Flecker - W. W. Gibson - D.H. Lawrence - John Masefield - Harold Monro - T. Sturge Moore - Ronald Ross - Edmund Beale Sargant - James Stephens - R.C. Trevelyan

Georgian Poetry 1913-15 (1915)
Lascelles Abercrombie - Gordon Bottomley - Rupert Brooke - W.H. Davies - Walter de la Mare - John Drinkwater - J.E. Flecker - W. W. Gibson - Ralph Hodgson - D.H. Lawrence - F. Ledwidge - John Masefield - Harold Monro - James Stephens

Georgian Poetry 1916-17 (1917)
Herbert Asquith - Maurice Baring - Gordon Bottomley - W.H. Davies - Walter de la Mare - John Drinkwater - John Freeman - W W. Gibson - Robert Graves - Ralph Hodgson - John Masefield - Harold Monro - Robert Nichols - Isaac Rosenberg - Siegfried Sassoon - J.C. Squire - James Stephens - W.J. Turner

Georgian Poetry 1918-19 (1919)
Lascelles Abercrombie - Gordon Bottomley - Francis Brett Young - W.H. Davies - Walter de la Mare - John Drinkwater - John Freeman - W.W. Gibson - Robert Graves - D.H. Lawrence - Harold Monro - Thomas Moult - Robert Nichols - J.D.C. Pellow - Siegfried Sassoon - Edward Shanks - Fredegond Shove - J.C. Squire - W.J. Turner

Georgian Poetry 1920-22 (1922)
Lascelles Abercrombie - Martin Armstrong - Edmund Blunden - Francis Brett Young - W.H. Davies - Walter de la Mare - John Drinkwater - John Freeman - W.W. Gibson - Robert Graves - Richard Hughes - William Kerr - D.H. Lawrence - Harold Monro - Robert Nichols - J.D.C. Pellow - Frank Prewett - Peter Quennell - Vita Sackville-West - Edward Shanks - J.C. Squire