Coningsby Dawson

Coningsby Dawson (1883-1959), from Carry On: Letters in wartime, 1917. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Coningsby Dawson
February 26, 1883(1883-Template:MONTHNUMBER-26) – August 10, 1959(1959-Template:MONTHNUMBER-10) (aged 76)
ConingsbyDawson.png
Place of birth	High Wycombe], Buckinghamshire, England
Allegiance	Canada
Service/branch	Canadian Forces
Rank	Lieutenant

Coningsby Dawson (26 February 1883 - 10 August 1959) was an Anglo-American poet and novelist, and a soldier in the Canadian Field Artillery.

Life

Youth and education

Dawson was born at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. His father was writer William James Dawson.

Coningsby Dawson attended Merton College, Oxford, matriculating in 1902 and earning a second class degree in Modern History in 1905. He spent a year taking a theological course at Union Seminary, but decided on a career as a writer.

Career

In the same year he went to America, where he did special work for English newspapers on Canadian subjects, traveling widely during the period. He lived at Taunton, Massachusetts, from 1906 to 1910, when he became literary adviser to the George H. Doran Publishing Company.

In Taunton he wrote poems, short stories, and three novels: Garden Without Walls (1913), an immediate success, followed by The Raft and Slaves of Freedom.

Military service

In 1914, he went to Ottawa, saw Sir Sam Hughes, and was offered a commission in the Canadian Field Artillery on the completion of his training at the Royal Military College of Canada, at Kingston, Ontario. "His long training at Kingston had been very severe. It included besides the various classes which he attended a great deal of hard exercise, long rides or foot marches over frozen roads before breakfast, and so forth."

In July 1916 he was selected, with 24 other officers, for immediate service in France. His younger brothers enlisted in the Naval Patrol, then being recruited in Canada by Commander Armstrong.

Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson joined the Canadian Army at the front in 1916, and continued in service until the end of World War I. He served in the Somme battlefield at Albert, at Thiepval, at Courcelette, and at the taking of the Regina trench.

Postwar career

After having been wounded he came twice to the United States (1917, 1918) on lecture tours. In 1918, he investigated for the British Ministry of Information, American military preparedness in France.

The Project Gutenberg EBook #14086 of Carry On: Letters in Wartime, by Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson, Novelist and Soldier, Canadian Field Artillery 1917 includes:

• "By the time this reaches you I'll be in the line again, but for the present I'm undergoing a special course of training. You can't hear the most distant sound of guns, and if it wasn't for the pressure of study, similar to that at Kingston, one would be very rested." February 4, 1917.

In 1919, he went to England to study European reconstruction problems, and subsequently lectured on the subject of the United States. He also visited and reported on the devastated regions of Central and Eastern Europe at the request of Herbert Hoover.

He also edited, with his father W.J. Dawson, The Reader's Library, and Best Short Stories (1923).

Publications

Poetry

• The Worker, and other poems. New York & London, Macmillan, 1906.
• Florence on a Certain Night, and other poems. New York: Holt, 1914.

Novels

• The House of Weeping Women. London: Hodder & Stoughton / Toronto: Westminster, 1908.
• Last Chance River. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910.
• Murder Point: A tale of Keewatin. London: Hodder & Stoughton / New York: Doran, 1910.
• The Road to Avalon. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1911.
• The Garden Without Walls. New York: Holt, 1913.
• The Raft. New York: Holt, 1914.
• The Unknown Country. New York: Hearsts, 1915.
• Slaves of Freedom. New York: Holt, 1916.
• The Seventh Christmas. New York: Holt, 1917; New York: Dodd, Mead, 1924.
• The Test of Scarlet: A romance of reality. New York & London: John Lane, 1919.
• The Little House. New York & London: John Lane, 1920.
• It Might Have Happened to You. New York & London: John Lane, 1921.
• The Kingdom Round the Corner. New York: Cosmopolitan, 1921; London: John Lane, 1921.
• The Vanishing Point. New York: Cosmopolitan, 1922.
• Christmas Outside of Eden. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1922.
• The Coast of Folly. London: Hutchinson, 1924; Toronto: Copp Clark, 1924.
• Old Youth: A novel. New York: Cosmopolitan, 1925; London: Hutchinson, 1926.
• When Is Always? New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1927.
• Pilgrims of the Impossible. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1928.
• The Unknown Soldier. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1929.
• The Auctioning of Mary Angel. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1930.
• Fugitives from Passion. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1930; London: Hutchinson, 1930.
• A Path to Paradise. New York: Knopf, 1932; London: 1932.
• The Moon Through Glass. New York: Knopf, 1934.
• Man in the Moon. London: 1934.
• Inspiration Valley. New York: Knopf, 1935.
• Tell Us of the Night. New York: Jefferson House, 1941.

Short fiction

• When Father Christmas Was Late (illustrated by Joseph E. Sandford). Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1919.

Non-fiction

• The Great English Letter-Writers (with W.J. Dawson). New York & London: Harper, 1908.
• The Great English Essayists (with W.J. Dawson). New York & London: Harper, 1909.
• The Great English Letter-Writers (with W.J. Dawson). (2 volumes), London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1909. Volume I, Volume II
• The Great English Short Story Writers (with W.J. Dawson). New York & London: Harper, 1910.
• The Great English Novelists (with W.J. Dawson). New York & London: Harper, 1911.
• A Child's Memorial; by her father and brother (with W.J. Dawson). 1911.
• Arnold Bennett: An introduction. New York: Doran, 1911.
• Khaki Courage: Letters in Wartime. New York & London: John Lane, 1917.
• The Glory of the Trenches: An interpretation. New York & London: John Lane, 1917; Toronto: S.B. Gundy, 1917.
• Out to Win: The story of America in France. New York & London: John Lane, 1918.
• Living Bayonets: A record of the last push. New York & London: John Lane, 1919.

Juvenile

• A Christmas Legend of Hamelin Town (illustrated by Marcia Kreitman). 1928.

Letters

• Carry On: Letters in wartime. New York & London: John Lane, 1917; Toronto: S.B. Gundy, 1917.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

Christmas Outside Of Eden Coningsby Dawson Myths, Legends & Fairy Tales Talking Book

• List of British poets
• List of U.S. poets

References

• 4237 Dr. Adrian Preston & Peter Dennis (Edited) "Swords and Covenants" Rowman And Littlefield, London. Croom Helm. 1976.
• H16511 Dr. Richard Arthur Preston "To Serve Canada: A History of the Royal Military College of Canada" 1997 Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1969.
• H16511 Dr. Richard Arthur Preston "Canada's RMC - A History of Royal Military College" Second Edition 1982
• H1877 R. Guy C. Smith (editor) "As You Were! Ex-Cadets Remember". In 2 Volumes. Volume I: 1876–1918. Volume II: 1919–1984. Royal Military College. [Kingston]. The R.M.C. Club of Canada. 1984
• Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 94. 

External links

Poems

• 2 poems by Dawson: "Hallowe'en," "In the Glad Month of May"
• Cannon’s Roar: Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson’s verse volleys from his The Glory Of The Trenches 1918 at Canadian War Poetry WWI Era

Books

• Works by Coningsby Dawson at Project Gutenberg