Alfred Noyes

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Alfred Noyes (16 September 1880 – 25/28 June 1958)^[1] was an English poet, best known for his ballads, The Highwayman (1906) and The Barrel Organ.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Works 3 Personal life 4 Death 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Early years

Noyes was born in Wolverhampton, England, the son of Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes. He attended Exeter College, Oxford, leaving before he had earned a degree.

[edit] Works

At 21, Noyes published his first collection of poems, The Loom Years. From 1903 to 1908, he published five additional volumes of poetry, including The Forest of Wild Thyme and The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems. In 1918, he followed with a short story collection Walking Shadows, Sea Tales and Others, which included the tale "The Lusitania Waits", a ghost revenge tale based on the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915—although the story hinges on an erroneous claim that the submarine crew had been awarded the Goetz medal for sinking the ship). In 1924 Noyes published another collection, The Hidden Player.^[2]

For the Pageant of Empire at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, Noyes wrote a series of poems set to music by Sir Edward Elgar and known as Pageant of Empire. Among these poems was Shakespeare's Kingdom.

As a result of increasing blindness, Noyes began dictating his work. In 1953, he published an autobiography, Two Worlds for Memory. He wrote about sixty books, including poetry, novels, and short story collections.

[edit] Personal life

In 1907, he married Garnett Daniels, who died in 1926. Noyes taught English literature at Princeton University from 1914 until 1923. Noyes later converted to Roman Catholicism and wrote about his conversion in The Unknown God (1934). Noyes later married Mary Angela Mayne Weld-Blundell, who had first married into the old recusant Catholic Weld-Blundell family.^[3] They settled at Lisle Combe, near Ventnor, Isle of Wight and had three children: Hugh, Veronica, and Margaret. His younger daughter married Michael Nolan (later Lord Nolan) in 1953.

[edit] Death

Alfred Noyes died at the age of 77. His grave is at Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

[edit] References

1. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica info on Noyes According to some sources, he died on 25 June, but others, including Encyclopædia Britannica give the date as 28 June
2. ^ Published works
3. ^ Peerage.com

[edit] External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Alfred Noyes

• Works by or about Alfred Noyes at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
• Works by Alfred Noyes at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
• Escape's radio adaptation of Noye's Log of the Evening Star
• Literary Heritage - Alfred Noyes