J.C. Squire

Sir John Collings Squire (2 April 1884 - 20 December 1958) was an English poet, prose writer, historian, and literary editor of the post-World War I period.

J.C. Squire (1884-1958). Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

Life

Youth and education

Squire was born in Plymouth.

He was educated at Blundell's School and St. John's College, Cambridge.

J.C. Squire (1884-1958). Courtesy World War I and English Poetry.

Early career

He began reviewing for The New Age; through his wife he had met Alfred Orage. His literary reputation was made by a flair for parody, in a column Imaginary Speeches in The New Age from 1909.

Squire's poetry from World War I was satirical; at the time he was reviewing for the New Statesman, using the name Solomon Eagle (taken from a Quaker of the 17th century); in 1915 he reviewed The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence . Squire had been appointed literary editor when the New Statesman was set up in 1912; he was noted as an adept and quick journalist, at ease with contributing to all parts of the journal. He was acting editor of the New Statesman in 1917-1918, when Clifford Sharp was in the British Army, and more than competently sustained the periodical.

When the war ended he found himself with a network of friends and backers, controlling a substantial part of London's literary press.

London Mercury

Main article: London Mercury

From 1919 to 1934, Squire was editor of the monthly periodical, the London Mercury. It showcased the work of the Georgian poets and was an important outlet for new writers. He also edited 2 anthologies of verse by younger poets (under 50), published in 1921 and 1924, under the title Selections from Modern Poets, which became definitive of the conservative style of Georgian poetry.

The Bloomsbury group named the coterie of writers that surrounded Squire as the Squirearchy. Alan Pryce-Jones, Squire's assistant on the Mercury, wrote

Among his contemporaries ... his reputation was variable. Many of them, such as Virginia Woolf, found him coarse; they thought, with reason, that he drank too much; they had little confidence in the group, known as the Squirearchy, which surrounded him.

T.S. Eliot accused Squire of using the London Mercury to saturate literary London with journalistic and popular criticism. According to Robert H. Ross: "By 1920 Squire was well on his way towards establishing a literary coterie of the Right just as partisan, as militant and as dedicated as the Leftist coteries."

Alec Waugh described the elements of Squire's "hegemony' as acquired largely by accident, consequent on his rejection for military service for bad sight. Squire's natural persona was of a beer-drinking, cricketing West Countryman. In July 1927 he became an early radio commentator on Wimbledon.

John Middleton Murry took an adversarial line towards Squire, seeing his London Mercury as in direct competition with his own magazine, The Athenaeum. Roy Campbell sometimes mocked Squire in verse.

In his book If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931), Squire collected a series of essays, many of which could be considered alternate histories, from some of the leading historians of the period (like Hilaire Belloc and Winston Churchill); in America it was published that same year in somewhat different form under the title If: or, History rewritten.

Politics

Squire had joined the Marxist Social Democratic Federation, as a young man. During his time at the New Statesman he wrote as a "Fabian liberal". His views moved steadily rightwards.

Squire met Benito Mussolini in 1933, and was a founder of the January Club, set up on 1 January 1934. He held in it the position of Chairman or Secretary, and claimed that it was not a Fascist organisation. It was a dining club with invited speakers, and was closely connected to Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, which nominated members. According to Charles Petrie Squire "found the atmosphere uncongenial before long". An as yet unpublished 1933 letter from Squire to Canadian poet Duncan Campbell Scott betray's Squire's brief flirtation – or at the very least infatuation – with fascism.

Later life / family

After leaving the London Mercury in 1934, Squire became a reader for Macmillan, the publishers. In 1937, he became a reviewer for the Illustrated London News.

Raglan Squire (an architect, known for his work at Rangoon University in the 1950s, as the architect for the conversion of the houses in Eaton Sq, London into flats and for many other buildings) was his eldest son. His next eldest was Antony Squire, a pilot film director (The Sound Barrier). His 3rd son, Maurice, was killed in World War II. His youngest daughter Julia Baker (née Squire) was a costume designer for theatre and cinema. She married actor George Baker..

Writing

Critical reputation

Since his death, Squire's reputation has declined; scholarship has absorbed the strictures of his contemporaries, such as F.S. Flint, openly critical of Squire in 1920. Squire is now considered to be on the "blimpish" wing of the reaction to modernist work.

Recognition

Squire was published in the Georgian Poetry collections of Edward Marsh.

In popular culture

Squire and his literary cricket XI, the Invalids, were immortalised in A.G. Macdonell's England, Their England, with Squire as Mr. William Hodge, editor of the London Weekly.

Squire is generally credited with the line, "I am not so think as you drunk I am".

Publications

Poetry

• The Three Hills, and other poems. London: Harold Latimer, 1913.
• Twelve Poems (illustrated by A. Spare). London: Morland Press, 1916.
• The Survival of the Fittest, and other poems. London: Allen & Unwin, 1916.
• The Lily of Malud, and other poems. London: Martin Secker, 1917.
• Poems: First series. London: Martin Secker, 1918; New York: Knopf, 1919.
• The Birds, and other poems. London: Martin Secker, 1919; New York: Doran, 1920.
• The Moon (long poem). London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920; New York: Doran, 1920.
• Poems: Second series. London & New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1922.
• American Poems, and others. London & New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1923.
• Collected Poems. London & New York: Macmillan, 1959.

Fiction

• The Gold Tree. London: M.Secker, 1917.
• The Grub Street night's entertainments. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1924; New York: Doran, 1924.
• If; or, History rewritten. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1959.

Non-fiction

• William the Silent. London: Methuen, 1912; New York: Baker & Taylor, 1912.
• Imaginary Speeches, and other parodies in prose and verse. London: Stephen Swift, 1912.* Steps to Parnassus: and other parodies & diversions. London: Howard Latimer, 1913.
• The Honeysuckle and the Bee (memoir). London & Toronto: Heinemann, 1917; New York: Dutton, 1918.
• Tricks of the Trade (parodies in verse and prose). London: Martin Secker, 1917; New York: Putnam, 1917.
• 'Books in General (essays). London: Martin Secker, 1918; New York: Knopf, 1919.
• Books in General: Second Series. London: Martin Secker, 1920; New York: Knopf, 1920.
• Life and Letters: Essays. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1920; New York: Doran, 1921.
• Collected Parodies. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1921; New York: Doran, 1921.
• Essays at Large (as "Solomon Eagle"). London, New York, & Toronto: Doran, 1922.
• Books Reviewed by J.C. Squire. New York: Doran, 1922; 2nd edition, London & New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1922.
• Essays on Poetry. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1923; New York: Doran, 1923; Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1967.
• Contemporary American Authors. New York: Holt, 1928.
• Flowers of Speech: Being lectures in words and forms in literature. London: Allen & Unwin, 1935; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1967.
• Shakespeare as a Dramatist. London: Cassell, 1935.
• Water Music; or, A fortnight of bliss (memoir). London: Heinemann, 1939.
• Solo and Duet (includes The Honeysuckle and the Bee and Water Music). London: Reprint Society, 1943.

Edited

• James Elroy Flecker, Collected Poems. London: M. Secker; New York: Doubleday, Page, 1916.
• The London Mercury (literary magazine). London: Field Press, 1919-1939.
• Selections from Modern Poets. London: Martin Secker, 1921.
• A Book of Women's Verse. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1921.
• Second Selections from Modern Poets. London: Martin Secker, 1924.
• The Cambridge Book of Lesser Poets. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1927; New York: Macmillan, 1927.
• Grass of Parnassus: An anthology of poetry for schools. London: Edward Arnold, 1936.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

London Mercury writers

"To A Bull-Dog" By John Collings Squire WW1 Poem animation

• H.H. Asquith
• Dennis Arundell
• Irving Babbitt
• Bela Bartok
• Clifford Bax
• Edmund Blunden
• E.M. Forster
• Virginia Woolf

See also

• List of British poets

References

• Patrick Howarth, Squire: Most Generous of Men. London: Hutchinson, 1963.

External links

Poems

• "There Was an Indian"
• "A House"
• 2 poems by Squire: "August Moon," "Late Snow"
• J.C. Squire in Georgian Poetry 1920-1922 (3 poems)
• John Collings Squire at AllPoetry (28 poems)

Audio / video

• J.C. Squire poems at YouTube

Books

• Works by J.C. Squire at Project Gutenberg
• Sir John Collings Squire at the Online Books Page
• J.C. Squire at Amazon.com

About

• Sir J.C. Squire in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• J.C. Squire 1884-1958 at the Poetry Foundation
• Portraits of J.C. Squire at the National Portrait Gallery (London)

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