Editing Richard Aldington (section)

===World War I and aftermath===
Aldington joined up in June 1916 and was sent for training at [[Wareham, Dorset|Wareham]] in Dorset. H.D. moved to be closer to her husband. He was then sent to a camp near [[Manchester]]. They found the duality of their lives harsh, and the gruelling, regimented nature of the training felt hard for the sensitive professional poet. He felt fundamentally different from the other men, more given to intellectual pursuits than unending physical labour that left him little time to write. Their sporadic meetings were emotionally wrenching and the couple could make no plans for their future together. He encouraged H.D. to return to America where she could make a safer and more stable home. They both watched news come in of heavy troop losses in France at the [[Battle of the Somme|Somme]] and on other battlefields. She could not have information given on her husband's future postings overseas, all held to be secret. Rationing and the forced draft began as the war turned against the British.<ref Name=Zilboorg/>

When Aldington was sent to the front in December 1916, the couple's relationship became epistolary. He wrote that he had managed to complete 12 poems and three essays since joining up and wanted to work on producing a new book, in order to keep his mind on literature, despite his work of digging graves. He found the soldier's life degrading, living with [[Body louse|lice]], cold, mud and little sanitation. His encounters with [[Chlorine gas poisoning|gas]] on the front would affect him for the rest of his life. He was given leave in July 1917 and the couple enjoyed a reunion during this brief reprieve. He felt distant from old Imagist friends like Pound who had not undergone the torturous life of the soldiers on the front and could not imagine the living conditions.<ref Name=Zilboorg/>

In November 1917, Aldington joined up in the [[Royal Leicestershire Regiment|11th Leicestershires]] and was later [[Officer (armed forces)|commissioned]] as a [[second lieutenant]] in the [[Royal Sussex Regiment]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=30436 |date=18 December 1917 |page=13311|supp=y}}</ref> He finished the war as a signals officer and temporary captain, being demobilised in February 1919.<ref Name=War/> He likely never fully recovered from the trauma of [[World War I]], writing of his field experiences in the collections ''Images of War'' and ''Images of Desire'' (1919), which were suffused with a new melancholy. By the end of World War I, he was feeling disconsolate about his own talent as a poet.<ref Name=PF/> ''Exile and Other Poems'' (1923) also dealt with the process of trauma. A collection of war stories ''Roads to Glory'', appeared in 1930. After this point he became known as a critic and biographer.<ref Name=War/>

Towards the end of the war, H.D. lived with composer [[Cecil Gray (composer)|Cecil Gray]], a friend of D. H. Lawrence's. They had a daughter together in March 1919, the pregnancy much complicated by H.D.'s catching pneumonia towards the end. Neither Gray nor Aldington wanted to accept paternity. By the time of Aldington's return H.D. was involved with the female writer [[Bryher (novelist)|Bryher]]. H.D. and Aldington formally separated and had relationships with other people, but they didn't divorce until 1938. They remained friends for the rest of their lives. He destroyed all the couple's pre-1918 correspondence.<ref>Vivien Whelpton (2014) ''Richard Aldington: Poet, Soldier and Lover 1911–1929'', p. 18.</ref>

Aldington helped [[T. S. Eliot]] by persuading [[Harriet Shaw Weaver]] to appoint Eliot as Aldington's successor at ''The Egoist'' magazine. In 1919, he introduced Eliot to the editor [[Bruce Lyttelton Richmond|Bruce Richmond]] of ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]''.<ref name="Carole Seymour-Jones 2001 p. 173">[[Carole Seymour-Jones]], ''Painted Shadow'' (2001), p. 173.</ref><ref>[[Lyndall Gordon]], ''Eliot's New Life'' (1988), p. 231.</ref> Aldington was on the editorial board of [[Diwan Chaman Lall|Chaman Lall]]'s London literary quarterly ''Coterie'' (published 1919–1921), accompanied by [[Conrad Aiken]], Eliot, Lewis and [[Aldous Huxley]].<ref>[[Nicholas Murray (biographer)|Nicholas Murray]], ''Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual'' (2002), p. 103.</ref> Eliot had a job in the international department of [[Lloyds Bank]] and well-meaning friends wanted him full-time writing poetry. Ezra Pound, plotting a scheme to "get Eliot out of the bank", was supported by [[Lady Ottoline Morrell]], [[Leonard Woolf]] and Harry Norton<ref>Carole Seymour-Jones, ''Painted Shadow'' (2001), pp. 342–346.</ref> Aldington began publishing in journals such as the Imagist ''The Chapbook''. In reply to Eliot's ''[[The Waste Land]]'', Aldington wrote ''A Fool i' the Forest'' (1924).

[[File:Valentine_Dobree_by_Mark_Gertler,_1919.jpg|thumb|[[Valentine Dobrée]] 1919]]
Aldington suffered a breakdown in 1925.<ref name = Zilboorg1>Caroline Zilboorg (editor), ''Richard Aldington and H.D.: Their Lives in Letters 1918–61'', p. 185.</ref> His interest in poetry waned, and he developed an animosity towards Eliot's celebrity.<ref>Carole Seymour-Jones, ''Painted Shadow'' (2001), p. 229.</ref> Aldington grew closer to Eliot<ref>Stanley Sultan, ''Eliot, Joyce, and Company'' (1987), p. 32.</ref> but gradually became a supporter of [[Vivienne Eliot]] in the troubled marriage. Aldington satirised her husband as "Jeremy Cibber" in ''Stepping Heavenward'' (1931).<ref>Carole Seymour-Jones, ''Painted Shadow'' (2001), pp. 471–472.</ref> He had a relationship with writer [[Valentine Dobrée]] and a lengthy and passionate affair with Arabella Yorke, a lover since [[Mecklenburgh Square]] days, coming to an end when he went abroad.<ref name=Zilboorg/><ref name=LRB/><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.londongardenstrust.org/guides/bloomsbury.htm |title=A Walk through Bloomsbury |access-date=26 November 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081227085628/http://www.londongardenstrust.org/guides/bloomsbury.htm |archive-date=27 December 2008}}</ref>

Aldington helped [[Irene Rathbone]] publish her semi-autobiographical novel ''We That Were Young'' in 1932. They had an affair that ended in 1937. Rathbone dedicated her 1936 novel ''They Call it Peace'' to him, and she wrote a long poem, ''Was There a Summer?: A Narrative Poem'', in 1943 about their relationship.<ref>{{Cite ODNB |title=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004-09-23 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/93807 |pages=ref:odnb/93807 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |place=Oxford |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/93807 |access-date=2023-03-03 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B. |editor3-last=Goldman |editor3-first=L.}}</ref>