Henry Newman Howard (16 June 1861 – 5 March 1929) was an English

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

. His first book, ''Footsteps of Proserpine and Other Verses and Interludes'', was published by Elliot Stock in 1897. He then wrote a series of critically praised

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and P ...

tragedies Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...

, which he called "the Christian Trilogy", beginning with ''Kiartan the Icelander'' in 1902, followed by ''Savanarola: a City's Tragedy'' in 1904 and ''Constantine the Great'' in 1906. ''Kiartan'' (whose theme was "the introduction of Christianity into Iceland"), in particular, was singled out for praise, Joseph B. Gilder remarking in '' the Bookman'' that "If anyone writing English verse today has achieved anything more imaginative or more beautiful than the last sixteen lines of Kiartan, the Icelander, it has escaped my observation."''The Bookman: an Illustrated Magazine of Literature and Life'', Volume XVI, August, 1902-February, 1903. Pages 31-32. Joseph B. Gilder: "A New English Poet". His collected poems and tragedies were published by

Macmillan and Co. Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...

in 1913. Newman Howard was the father of Gwendolen "Len" Howard (1894–1973), the British naturalist, author, and musician.

Notes

Bibliography

*''Footsteps of Proserpine and Other Verses and Interludes'' (1897

*''Kiartan the Icelander: a Tragedy'' (1902

*''Savonarola: a City's Tragedy'' (1904

*''Constantine the Great: a Tragedy'' (1906

*''Collected Poems'' (1913

{{DEFAULTSORT:Howard, Newman English dramatists and playwrights 1929 deaths 1861 births English male dramatists and playwrights English male poets