John Frederick Freeman

John Frederick Freeman, from The Bookman 57 (December 1919). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

John Frederick Freeman, (29 January 1880 - 23 September 1929), was an English poet and essayist,

Life

Freeman was born in London.

He started work as an office boy at age 13. Later, he gave up a successful career in insurance to write full time.

From 1907 he was a close friend of Walter de la Mare, who lobbied hard with Edward Marsh to get Freeman into the Georgian Poetry series, with eventual success.

De la Mare's biographer Theresa Whistler describes Freeman as "tall, gangling, ugly, solemn, punctilious".

Recognition

He won the Hawthornden Prize in 1920 with Poems, 1909-1920.

His "Last Hours" was set to music by Ivor Gurney.

His poetry was included in the Oxford Book of Modern Verse.

Publications

Poetry

• Twenty Poems. London: Gay & Hancock, 1909.
• Fifty Poems. London: Herbert & Daniel, 1911.; London: Selwyn & Blount, 1916.
• Presage of Victory, and other poems of the time. London: Selwyn & Blount, 1916.
• Stone Trees, and other poems. London: Selwyn & Blount, 1916.
• Memories of Childhood and other poems. London: Selwyn & Blount, 1919.
• Poems New and Old. London: Selwyn & Blount, 1920; New York: Harcourt & Brace, 1921.
• Music: Lyrical and narrative poems. London: Selwyn & Blount, 1921; New York Harcourt, 1922.
• The Red Path (a Narrative), and The Wounded Bird. Cambridge, MA: Dunster House, 1921.
• The Grove, and other poems. London: Selwyn & Blount, 1924.
• Collected Poems. London: Macmillan, 1928.
• Last Poems. London: Macmillan, 1930.

Play

• Prince Absalom. London: Macmillan, 1925.

Non-fiction

• The Moderns: Essays in Literary Criticism. London: R. Scott, 1916; New York: T.Y. Crowell, 1916; Honolulu, HI: University of the Pacific, 2004.
• A Portrait of George Moore in a Study of his Work. London: T. Werner / Laurie, 1922; New York: Appleton, 1922.

Letters

• John Freeman's Letters (edited by Gertrude Farren Freeman & John Collings Squire). London: Macmillan, 1936.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• Georgian poets
• List of British poets
• List of literary critics

External links

Poems

• "The Stars in Their Courses"
• John Freeman in Georgian Poetry, 1918-1919 (9 poems)
• John Freeman in Georgian Poetry, 1920-1922 (7 poems)
• Poems by John Frederick Freeman at Poetry Cat
• John Frederick Freeman at Public Domain Literature

Books

• Works by John Freeman at Project Gutenberg
• Poems: New and old at Amazon.com