John Drinkwater (playwright)
John Drinkwater (1 June 1882 - 25 March 1937) was an English poet and dramatist.
He was born in Leytonstone, London, and worked as an insurance clerk. In the period immediately before the First World War, he was one of the group of poets associated with the Gloucestershire village of Dymock, along with Rupert Brooke and others.
In 1918, he scored his first major success with his play Abraham Lincoln. He followed it up with others in a similar vein, including Mary Stuart and Oliver Cromwell. In 1924, his Lincoln play was adapted for a two-reel short film made by Lee DeForest and J. Searle Dawley featuring Frank McGlynn Sr. as Lincoln, and made in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process.[1]
He had published poetry since The Death of Leander in 1906; the first volume of his Collected Poems appeared in 1923. He also compiled anthologies and wrote literary criticism (e.g. Swinburne: an estimate (1913)), and later became manager of Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
He was married to Daisy Kennedy, the ex-wife of Benno Moiseiwitsch.
Papers relating to John Drinkwater and collected by his stepdaughter are held at the University of Birmingham Special Collections.
John Drinkwater made recordings in the Columbia Records 'International Educational Society' Lecture series. They include Lecture 10 - a lecture on 'The Speaking of Verse' (Four 78rpm sides, Cat no. D 40018-40019), and Lecture 70 'John Drinkwater reading his own poems' (Four 78rpm sides, Cat no. D 40140-40141).[2]
His name was given to a towerblock on a 1960s council estate in Leytonstone.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Lee de Forest and Phonofilm at Virtual Broadway website
- ^ Catalogue of Columbia Records, Up to and including Supplement no. 252 (Columbia Graphophone Company, London September 1933), pp. 371, 374.
[edit] External links
- Dymock Poets Archive University of Gloucestershire Archives and Special Collections
- Works by John Drinkwater at Project Gutenberg
- Discussion of John Drinkwater's play Abraham Lincoln
- Archival material relating to John Drinkwater (playwright) listed at the UK National Register of Archives
 |
This article about an English writer, poet or playwright is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
