Arthur Stanley Theodore Fisher (1906–1989) was a mid-20th-century Church of England priest and writer. He wrote a number of poems, religious works and local histories as A. S. T. Fisher and one novel under the pseudonym Michael Scarrott.

Family

Fisher was the son of Reverend Arthur Bryan Fisher (1870–1955), a Church of England priest who was a Church Missionary Society missionary in the Uganda Protectorate. Fisher was married and had a daughter.

Education

Fisher studied at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

, where he lived on the same stair as W. H. Auden. The two students had frequent late-night arguments about religion, and in 1925, Fisher reintroduced Auden to

Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...

. In 1926, Auden's mother, Constance, was concerned about her son, so Fisher wrote to her "the fact that he is naturally more self-sufficient than most people explains why he finds so little need for a personal God – or for a Mother". In 1928, the journal '' Oxford Poetry'' published three of Fisher's poems.

Career

By early 1934, Fisher was chaplain of the recently founded Bryanston School, a public school in Dorset, but had left by February 1935. By 1952, he was chaplain of Magdalen College School, Oxford, and by 1970, he was Vicar of Westwell, Oxfordshire. Fisher wrote books of prayers and other Christian matters, poems, and later three histories of parishes in West Oxfordshire. Longman published his ''An Anthology of Prayers Compiled for use in School and Home'' in 1934 and republished it a number of times from 1943 to 1959. Under the pseudonym of Michael Scarrott, Fisher wrote a gay novel set in a fictitious Dorset public school, which

Reginald Caton Reginald Ashley Caton (1897–1971) was an English publisher. He appears as a literary character, especially in novels by Kingsley Amis. In 1924 he founded the Fortune Press in London, initially as a small press specialising in gay erotica. Suc ...

's Fortune Press published in 1955. The novel was illustrated by Fisher's son-in-law, B.H. (Barry) Surie.

Works

As A. S. T. Fisher

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As Michael Scarrott

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisher, A S T Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Christian writers 20th-century English Anglican priests Historians of Oxfordshire 1906 births 1989 deaths 20th-century English poets 20th-century English historians