Arthur Quiller-Couch

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Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944), from The Bookman, 1898. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Born	November 21 1863(1863-Template:MONTHNUMBER-21) Bodmin, Cornwall, England
Died	May 12 1944(1944-Template:MONTHNUMBER-12) (aged 80)
Pen name	Q
Occupation	Poet, novelist, critic
Nationality	British
Education	Newton Abbot College, Clifton College
Alma mater	Trinity College, Oxford
Notable work(s)	Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900
Notable award(s)	Knight Bachelor (1910), Bard of Gorseth Kernow (1928)
Influenced F.R. Leavis, Alistair Cooke, Helene Hanff, John Mortimer

Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (21 November 1863 - 12 May 1944) was an English poet, novelist, and anthologist who published under the pen name of Q, best remembered for the Oxford Book Of English Verse, 1250–1900 anthology.

Life

Family, youth, education

He was born at Bodmin in Cornwall to the union of 2 ancient local families, the Quiller family and the Couch family, and was the 3rd in line of intellectuals from the Couch family. His younger sisters, Florence Mabel and Lilian M., were also writers and folklorists. His father, Dr. Thomas Quiller Couch (d. 1884), was a noted physician, folklorist and historian (see The Gentleman's Magazine).

Arthur's grandfather, Jonathan Couch, was an eminent naturalist, also a physician, historian, classicist, apothecary, and illustrator (particularly of fishes) in the style of the time. His son, Bevil Brian Quiller-Couch, was a war hero and poet, whose romantic letters to his fiancée, poet May Wedderburn Cannan, were published in the beautiful but tragic Tears of War. He also had a daughter, Foy Felicia, to whom Kenneth Grahame inscribed a 1st edition of his Wind in the Willows attributing Quiller-Couch as the inspiration for the character Ratty, auctioned by Bonhams on Tuesday 23 March 2010 for £32,400.

Arthur was educated at Newton Abbot Proprietary College, at Clifton College, and Trinity College, Oxford.

Career

On taking his degree in 1886, Quiller-Couch was for a short time classical lecturer at Trinity.

Literary career

In 1887 he published his Dead Man's Rock (a romance in the vein of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island), which he followed up with Troy Town (1888) and The Splendid Spur (1889). He published in 1896 a series of critical articles, Adventures in Criticism, and in 1898 he completed Robert Louis Stevenson’s unfinished novel, St. Ives.

After some journalistic experience in London, mainly as a contributor to the Speaker, in 1891 he settled at Fowey in Cornwall. In the same year he published another novel, The Blue Pavilions.

In 1895 he published an anthology from the 16th- and 17th-century English lyricists, The Golden Pomp. This was followed in 1900 by the equally successful Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900. The latter book sold close to 500,000 copies of its 1st edition. A 2nd edition, also edited by Quiller-Couch, followed in 1918, and a 3rd revised edition in 1939, both edited by Quiller-Couch. His anthology remained in print until 1972, when Helen Gardner's New Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1950 appeared. He edited a companion volume, the Oxford Book of English Prose, published in 1925.

His later novels include The Ship of Stars (1899), Hetty Wesley (1903), The Adventures of Harry Revel (1903), Fort Amity (1904), The Shining Ferry (1905), Sir John Constantine (1906). He wrote a number of popular novels with Cornish settings (collected as Tales and Romances in 30 volumes, 1928-1929).

In 1910 he published The Sleeping Beauty, and other fairy tales from the old French.

He was also a noted literary critic, publishing editions of some of Shakespeare's plays (in the New Shakespeare, published by Cambridge University Press, with Dover Wilson) and several critical works (among these are Studies in Literature (1918) and On the Art of Reading (1920)).

Academic career

In 1912 he was appointed to the King Edward VII professorship of English literature at the University of Cambridge, and simultaneously elected to a fellowship of Jesus College, Cambridge; both positions which he held until his death. His inaugural Cambridge lectures were turned into the book On the Art of Writing.

Quiller-Couch in old age. Courtesy Bartleby.com.

His rooms at Jesus College were on C staircase, First Court, and known as the 'Q-bicle'. He oversaw the beginnings of the English Faculty there, an academic diplomat in a fractious community. He is sometimes regarded as the epitome of the school of English literary criticism later overthrown by F.R. Leavis.

Alistair Cooke was a notable student of Quiller-Couch. and he features prominently in Nick Clarke's semi-official biography of Cooke. Clarke also notes that Quiller-Couch was regarded by the Cambridge Establishment as "rather eccentric" even by the University's standards.

Private life

In Cornwall, Quiller-Couch was an active worker in the Liberal Party, and commodore of the Royal Fowey Yacht Club from 1911 until his death.

He died in Fowey on May 12, 1944. He left his autobiography, Memories and Opinions, unfinished; it was edited and published in 1944.

Writing

From his college days on Quiller-Couch was known as a writer of excellent verse. With the exception of the parodies entitled Green Bays (1893), his poetical work is contained in Poems and Ballads (1896).

Recognition

Quiller-Couch was knighted in 1910.

He was made a bard of Gorseth Kernow in 1928, taking the bardic name Marghak Cough ("Red Knight").

In popular culture

Castle Dor, a retelling of the Tristan and Iseult myth in modern circumstances, was left unfinished at Quiller-Couch's death and was completed many years later by Daphne du Maurier. As she wrote in the Sunday Telegraph on April 1962, she took up the job with considerable trepidation, at the request of Quiller-Couch's daughter and "in memory of happy evenings long ago when 'Q' was host at Sunday supper"

His Oxford Book of English Verse is oft-quoted by John Mortimer's fictional barrister, Horace Rumpole.

He features as a main character, played by Leo McKern, in the 1992 BBC TV feature, The Last Romantics. The story focuses on his relationship with his protégé, F.R. Leavis, and the students.

His Cambridge inaugural lecture series, published as On the Art of Writing, is the source of the popular writers' adage "murder your darlings".

Publications

Poetry

• Green Bays: Verses and parodies. London: C.J. Clark, 1894.
• Poems and Ballads by 'Q'. London: Methuen, 1896.
• The Vigil of Venus, and other poems. London: Methuen, 1912.
• Poems. London: Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, 1929.

Novels

• Dead Man's Rock: A romance. London & New York: Cassell, 1887.
• The Astonishing HIstory of Troy Town. London & New York: Cassell, 1888.
• The Splendid Spur: Being memoirs of the adventures of Mr. John Marvel, London: Cassell, 1889.
• The Blue Pavilions. London & New York: Cassell, 1891.
• St Ives (completed an unfinished novel by Robert Louis Stevenson). Boston: Jefferson Press, 1897;
  • also published ss Stevenson, Works, Volume VIII. Edinburgh: T. & A. Constable, for Longmaans Green / Cassell / Seeley / Scribner / Chatto & Windus, 1898.
• The Ship of Stars. London: Nelson, 1899; New York: Scribner, 1899.
• Hetty Wesley. London & New York: Macmillan, 1903.
• The Adventures of Harry Revel. London: 1903; New York: Scribner, 1903.
• Fort Amity. London: John Murray, 1904; New York: Scribner, 1904.
• The Shining Ferry. London: Nelson, 1905; New York: Scribner, 1905; Toronto: Copp Clark, 1905.
• Sir John Constantine: Sir John Constantine: Memoirs of his adventures at home and abroad, and particularly in the island of Corsica. New York: Scribner, 1906.
• Tales and Romances. (30 volumes), London: Dent / New York: Duttonn, 1928–1929.

Short fiction

• Noughts and Crosses: Stories, studies, and sketches. London & New York: Cassell, 1888.
• The Laird's Luck, and other fireside tales. London: Cassell, 1901; New York: Scribner, 1902.
• The White Wolf, and other fireside tales. London: Methuen, 1902.
• Two Sides of the Face: Midwinter tales. London: Dent, 1903; New York: Scribner, 1903.
• Corporal Sam, and other stories. London: Smith, Elder, 1910.
• Selected Stories: Chosen by the author. London & Toronto: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1921.
• Old Stories and Profitable Ghosts. London: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1928.

Non-fiction

• Adventures in Criticism. London: Cassell, 1896; New York: Scribner, 1896.
• From a Cornish Window. Bristol, UK: J.W. Arrowsmith / London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1906 / New York: Dutton, 1906.
• On the Art of Reading. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1915; New York & London: Putnam, 1920.
• On the Art of Writing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1916.
• Studies in Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1918; New York: Putnam, 1918.
• Studies in Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1922; New York: Putnam, 1922.
• Charles Dickens, and other Victorians. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1925.
• Memories and Opinions: An unfinished autobiography (edited by Sydney Castle Roberts). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Pres, 1944.

Juvenile

• • The Sleeping Beauty, and other fairy tales. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910.

Collected editions

• Q Anthology: A selection from the prose and verse (edited by Frederick Brittain). London: Dent, 1948; New York: Macmillan, 1949.

Edited

• The Golden Pomp: A procession of English lyrics from Surrey to Shirley. London: Methuen, 1895.
• Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press / New York: Oxford University Press, 1900
  • revised as Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press / New York: Oxford University Press, 1939.
• Oxford Book of Ballads. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1910.
• Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. Oxord, UK: Clarendon Press, 1912.
• Oxford Book of English Prose. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1925.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

The Omnibus by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

• List of British poets
• List of literary critics

References

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 950-951.  Wikipedia, Feb. 15, 2021.
• Archer, William Poets of the Younger Generation (New York, 1902)
• Brittain, Frederick, Arthur Quiller-Couch, a Biographical Study of Q (Cambridge: University Press, 1947)
• Joshi, S.T., 'A brief essay on Quiller-Couch's ghost stories', in S.T. Joshi (ed.), The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004)
• Rowse, A.L., Quiller-Couch: A portrait of "Q" (1988)

Fonds

• 'Quiller-Couch Family Papers' at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

External links

Poems

• Quiller-Couch in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895: "The Splendid Spur," "The White Moth"
• Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch at Poetry Nook (27 poems)
• Arthur Quiller-Couch at Poeticous (34 poems)
• Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch at PoemHunter (48 poems)

Prose

• "Poetry" (lecture)
• "The Roll-Call of the Reef" (story)
• Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch at Wikisource

Books

• On the Art of Writing
• Works by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch at Project Gutenberg
• Arthur Quiller-Couch at Amazon.com
• Arthur Quiller-Couch at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

About

• Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch Official website