Editing Lascelles Abercrombie

{{short description|British poet (1881–1938)}}
{{More citations needed|date=November 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2012}}
{{Infobox writer
| name          = Lascelles Abercrombie
| image         = Lascelles Abercrombie.jpg
| image_size    = 
| alt           = 
| caption       = Abercrombie in 1937.
| birth_date    =  {{Birth date|1881|1|9|df=yes}}<ref name=EB>{{cite encyclopedia|editor-first=Dale H.|editor-last=Hoiberg|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|title=Abercrombie, Lascelles|edition=15th|year=2010|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.|volume=I: A-ak Bayes|location=Chicago, Illinois|isbn=978-1-59339-837-8|pages=[https://archive.org/details/newencyclopaedia2009ency/page/27 27]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/newencyclopaedia2009ency/page/27}}</ref>
| birth_place   =  [[Ashton upon Mersey]], [[Sale, Greater Manchester|Sale]], England, [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]]
| death_date    =  {{Death date and age|1938|10|27|1881|1|9|df=yes}} 
| death_place   =  [[London]], England, UK
| occupation    =  Journalist, lecturer 
| alma_mater    =  [[Malvern College]], [[Owens College]]}}

'''Lascelles Abercrombie''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA|size=100%}} (9 January 1881 &ndash; 27 October 1938)<ref name=EB/> was a British [[poet]] and literary critic, one of the "[[Dymock poets]]". After the First World War he worked as a professor of English literature in a number of English universities, writing principally on the theory of literature.

==Biography==
Abercrombie was born in [[Ashton upon Mersey]], [[Sale, Greater Manchester|Sale, Cheshire.]]<ref name="CBD">Thorne, J. O. and Collocott, T. C., eds. (1984). ''[[Chambers Biographical Dictionary]]'', revised ed. (Chambers), p. 4; {{ISBN|0-550-18022-2}}; accessed 5 May 2014.</ref> He was educated at [[Malvern College]],<ref>''Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature'' (1995) Merriam-Webster Inc. p. 3; {{ISBN|978-0-87779-042-6}}.</ref> and at [[Owens College|Owens College, Manchester]].<ref name=EB/>

Before the [[World War I|First World War]], he lived for a time at [[Dymock]] in [[Gloucestershire]], part of a community of poets, including [[Robert Frost]], and often visited by [[Rupert Brooke]], and [[Edward Thomas (poet)|Edward Thomas]]. The [[Dymock poets]] were included among the "Georgian poets", and Abercrombie's poetry was included in four of the five volumes of [[Georgian Poetry]] (edited by [[Edward Marsh (polymath)|Edward Marsh]], 1912–1922). During the pre-War years, he earned his living reviewing books, and started his poetry writing. His first book, ''Interludes and Poems'' (1908), was followed by ''Mary and the Bramble'' (1910) and the play ''Deborah'', and later by ''Emblems of Love'' (1912) and ''Speculative Dialogues'' (1913). His critical works include ''An Essay Towards a Theory of Art'' (1922), and ''Poetry, Its Music and Meaning'' (1932). ''Collected Poems'' (1930) was followed by ''The Sale of St. Thomas'' (1930), a dramatic poem.<ref name=EB/>

During [[World War I]], he served as a munitions examiner, after which he was appointed to the first lectureship in poetry at the [[University of Liverpool]].<ref name=EB/> In 1922 he was appointed Professor of English at the [[University of Leeds]] in preference to [[J. R. R. Tolkien]], with whom he shared, as author of ''The Epic'' (1914), a professional interest in [[heroic poetry]].<ref>Humphrey Carpenter, ''J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography'', 1977, p. 114.<!-- ISBN needed --></ref> In 1929 he moved on to the [[University of London]], and in 1935 to the prestigious Goldsmiths' Readership at the [[University of Oxford]],<ref name="CBD"/> where he was elected as a Fellow of [[Merton College, Oxford|Merton College]].<ref name="MCreg">{{cite book|editor1-last=Levens|editor1-first=R.G.C.|title=Merton College Register 1900-1964|date=1964|publisher=Basil Blackwell|location=Oxford|page=261}}</ref> He wrote a series of works on the nature of poetry, including ''The Idea of Great Poetry'' (1925) and ''Romanticism'' (1926). He published several volumes of original verse, largely metaphysical poems in dramatic form, and a number of verse plays. Abercrombie also contributed to ''[[Georgian Poetry]]'' and several of his verse plays appeared in ''New Numbers'' (1914).<ref>The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 6th Edition. Edited by Margaret Drabble, Oxford University Press, 2000 p.2</ref> His poems and plays were collected in 'Poems' (1930).<ref name="CBD"/><ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Jeffrey |editor-last=Cooper |title=Lascelles Abercrombie, 1881–1938: Towards a Complete Checklist of his Publications |location=Blackburn |publisher=White Sheep Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-9548682-0-X }}</ref>

Lascelles Abercrombie suffered in his later years from serious diabetes, and died in [[London]] in 1938, aged 57.<ref name=EB/>

At the end of the Second World War, it was discovered that, despite his death, Abercrombie's name had been mistakenly included in "[[The Black Book (list)|The Black Book]]" or ''Sonderfahndungsliste G.B.'' list of Britons who were to be arrested in the event of a Nazi invasion of Britain.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/hitlers-black-book/person/2762/lascelles-abercrombie/|title=Hitler's Black Book - information for Lascelles Abercrombie|website=Forces-war-records.co.uk|access-date=9 November 2019}}</ref>

===Family===
Abercrombie was the brother of architect and noted town planner [[Patrick Abercrombie]]. In 1909 he married Catherine Gwatkin (1881–1968) of [[Grange-over-Sands]]. They had 4 children, a daughter and three sons.  Two of the sons achieved prominence, [[David Abercrombie (linguist)|David Abercrombie]] as a phonetician and [[Michael Abercrombie]] as a cell biologist.<ref name="DNB">{{cite journal|last1=Elton|first1=Oliver|title=Abercrombie, Lascelles (1881–1938)|journal=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|date=2004|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com|access-date=7 August 2016}}</ref> The latter's son [[Nicholas Abercrombie]] is a sociologist. A grandson, Jeffrey Cooper, produced an admirable bibliography of his grandfather, with brief but important notes, while a great-grandson is author [[Joe Abercrombie]].<ref name="poetscorner">[http://theotherpages.org/poems/poem-ab.html#abercrombie Index entry for Lascelles Abercrombie at Poets' Corner]; accessed 5 May 2014.</ref><ref name="glosacuk">[http://resources.glos.ac.uk/departments/lis/archives/collections/gpwa/dymock.cfm Dymock Poets Archive] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090521155638/http://resources.glos.ac.uk/departments/lis/archives/collections/gpwa/dymock.cfm |date=21 May 2009 }}, resources.glos.ac.uk; accessed 5 May 2014.</ref>

[[Arthur Ransome]] dedicated his second children's adventure novel ''[[Swallowdale]]'' to Lascelles's daughter Elizabeth. He was a close friend of her father, Lascelles, who was often his walking/hiking companion during the 1900/1910s. He had previously dedicated his 1909 anthology, ''The Book of Friendship'' to Lascelles Abercrombie.<ref>''Mixed Moss 2024''</ref>

==Poetry and plays==
Abercrombie's poetry consists very largely of long poems in blank verse, mainly in dramatic form. They treat the extremes of imagined rather than actual experience, from ecstasy to anguish and malice, with little in between, in verse full of sharp, gem-like imagery and generally rugged in sound and metre. Admired for a time by good judges such as [[Charles Williams (British writer)|Charles Williams]], [[Oliver Elton]] and [[Una Ellis-Fermor]], and respected by his fellow 'Georgian' poets, it was never popular, and by the 1930s no longer corresponded to what readers sought in modern verse.

His 'Four Short Plays' of 1922 have fared better and still receive some attention, particularly 'The Staircase', because of their more realistic characters and setting. They compare favourably to the poetic plays of the other Georgian poets, such as [[John Drinkwater (playwright)|John Drinkwater]] and [[John Masefield]].

==Archives==
A collection of literary and other manuscripts relating to Abercrombie is held by Special Collections in the [[Brotherton Library]] at the [[University of Leeds]].<ref name="Collection guides">{{cite web|title=Collection guides|url=https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-guide#atoz-nav-a|website=Special Collections|publisher=Leeds University Library|access-date=3 April 2017}}</ref> The collection contains drafts of many of Abercrombie's own publications and literary material; lecture notes, including those of his own lectures and some notes taken from the lectures of others, and a printed order of service for his Memorial Service in 1938.<ref name="Lascelles Abercrombie manuscripts">{{cite web|title=Lascelles Abercrombie manuscripts|url=https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8136|website=Special Collections|publisher=Leeds University Library|access-date=3 April 2017}}</ref>

Special Collections in the [[Brotherton Library]] also holds correspondence relating to Lascelles Abercrombie and his family.<ref name="Ralph Abercrombie correspondence">{{cite web|title=Ralph Abercrombie correspondence|url=https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/6989|website=Special Collections|publisher=Leeds University Library|access-date=3 April 2017}}</ref> Comprising 105 letters, the collection contains letters of condolence to Catherine and Ralph Abercrombie on the death of Lascelles, as well as Abercrombie family letters from various correspondents, chiefly to Ralph Abercrombie.

==Works==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Title !! Year !! Description
|-
|[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.123565/page/n1/mode/2up ''Interludes and Poems'']|| 1908<ref name=EB/> || Book of poems
|-
|"Mary and the Bramble"|| 1910<ref name=EB/>  || Poem
|-
|[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.33848/page/n5/mode/2up ''Deborah'']<ref name=EB/> || || Play
|-
|[https://archive.org/details/emblemsoflove00aberiala''Emblems of Love'']|| 1912<ref name=EB/> || Sequence of poems
|- 
|[https://archive.org/details/speculativedialo00aberuoft/page/n1/mode/2up ''Speculative Dialogues'']|| 1913<ref name=EB/> || Work of prose
|-
|''The End of the World''
|1914<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.greatwartheatre.org.uk/db/person/14/|title=Lascelles Abercrombie|website=Great War Theatre|access-date=17 August 2019}}</ref>
|Play
|-
|''An Essay Towards a Theory of Art''|| 1922<ref name=EB/> || {{wikisource inline|An Essay Towards a Theory of Art|this work and an edition of this work itself available}}
|- 
|[https://archive.org/details/theoryofpoetry0000aber/page/n5/mode/2up ''The Theory of Poetry'']||1924|| Essay
|-
|[https://archive.org/details/ideaofgreatpoetr0000aber/page/n5/mode/2up ''The Idea of Great Poetry'']||1925|| Essay
|-
|''Poetry, Its Music and Meaning''|| 1932<ref name=EB/> || Book
|-
|''Collected Poems''|| 1930<ref name=EB/> || Book of poems
|-
|"The Sale of St. Thomas"|| 1930<ref name=EB/> || Poem
|}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Wikiquote inline}}
* [http://libus.csd.mu.edu/record=b1765375 Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection], containing letters by Abercrombie
* [http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/abercrombie/abercrombie.html Works of Lascelles Abercrombie] in the Special Collections of the [[Bodleian Library]] at the [[University of Oxford]]
* {{NPG name|id=77576|name=Lascelles Abercrombie|accessdate=5 May 2014}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=3649| name=Lascelles Abercrombie}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Lascelles Abercrombie}}
* {{Librivox author |id=1407}}
* [http://www.poemhunter.com/lascelles-abercrombie/poems Lascelles Abercrombie poems], poemhunter.com; accessed 5 May 2014.
* Archival collection at {{wikidata|qualifier|property|P485|P856|format=\[%q %p\]}}
* [http://www.dymockpoets.org.uk/Abercrombie.htm Profile of Lascelles Abercrombie], dymockpoets.org.uk; accessed 5 May 2014

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abercrombie, Lascelles}}
[[Category:1881 births]]
[[Category:1938 deaths]]
[[Category:People educated at Malvern College]]
[[Category:People from Sale, Greater Manchester]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Leeds]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of London]]
[[Category:Fellows of Merton College, Oxford]]
[[Category:English male poets]]
[[Category:20th-century English poets]]
[[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]]
[[Category:20th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:People from Dymock]]