Ernest Rhys

Ernest Percival Rhys (July 17, 1859 – May 25, 1946) was an English poet and writer, best known for his role as founding editor of the Everyman's Library series of affordable classics. He wrote essays, stories, poetry, novels and plays.

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He was born in London, and brought up in Carmarthen and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

After working in the coal industry, he was employed doing editorial work on the Camelot Series of 65 reprints and translations from 1886, for five years, while he turned to writing as a profession. He was a founder member in 1890 of the Rhymer's Club in London, and a contributor to The Book of the Rhymers' Club (1893). In 1906, he persuaded J.M. Dent, the publisher, for whom he was working on The Lyric Poets series, to start out on the ambitious Everyman project, aiming to publish 1000 titles; the idea was to put out ten at a time. The target was eventually reached, ten years after Rhys died.

Poetry

 * A London Rose and other rhymes. London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane / New York: Dodd, Mead, 1894,
 * Welsh Ballads (1898) poems
 * Lays of the Round Table and other lyric romances. London: J.M. Dent, 1905.
 * The Leaf-Burners (1918) poems
 * Rhymes for Everyman (1933) poems
 * Song of the Sun (1937) poems
 * Song of the Sun (1937) poems

Plays

 * Gwenevere: Lyric Play (1905)
 * The Masque of the Grail. London: Elkin Mathews, 1908.
 * Enid: a lyric play written for music (1908)

Fiction

 * The Fiddler of Carne: A North Sea winter's tale. Edinburgh: Patrick Geddes, 1896.
 * The Whistling Maid: A romance. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1900.
 * Blackhorse Pit (1925) novel

Non-fiction

 * The Great Cockney Tragedy (1891)
 * Frederic, Lord Leighton. London: George Bell & Sons, 1895.
 * Literary Pamphlets, chiefly relating to poetry, from Sidney to Byron, Volume I]. New York: Henry Holt / London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1897. [Volume I, Volume II.
 * Lyric Poetry (1913) Criticism
 * Rabindranath Tagore: A biographical study. London: Macmillan, 1915.
 * The Growth of Political Liberty (1921)
 * Everyman Remembers (1931) autobiography
 * Letters from Limbo (1936)

Children's books

 * English Fairy Tales (1913) (with Grace Little Rhys).

Edited

 * The Garden of Romance: Romantic tales of all time. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1897.
 * Shorter Novels: 18th Century. London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1903.
 * Fairy-Gold: A book of Old English Fairy Tales (1906) editor
 * [The Diary of Samuel Pepys. London: J.M. Dent / New York: E.P. Dutton, 1906. ''Volume I
 * The Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography. London: J.M. Dent, 1907.
 * Everyman with other interludes, including eight miracle plays. London: J.M. Dent; New York, E.P. Dutton, 1909.
 * A Century of English Essays  (chosen by Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan). London: J.M. Dent (Everyman's Library), 1913.
 * The new golden treasury of songs and lyrics (1914) editor
 * The Haunters and the Haunted: Ghost Stories and Tales of the Supernatural. London: Daniel O'Connor, 1921.
 * Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman, Hero and Leander and other poems.
 * William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets.