John Freeman in The Bookman volume 57 December 1919 p

John Frederick Freeman (29 January 1880 – 23 September 1929) was an English poet and essayist, who gave up a successful career in

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

to write full-time. He was born in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, and started as an office boy aged 13. He was a close friend of

Walter de la Mare Walter John de la Mare (; 25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956) was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for a highly acclaimed selection of ...

from 1907, who lobbied hard with Edward Marsh to get Freeman into the ''

Georgian Poetry Georgian Poetry refers to a series of anthologies showcasing the work of a school of English poetry that established itself during the early years of the reign of King George V of the United Kingdom. The Georgian poets were, by the strictest d ...

'' series; with eventual success. De la Mare's biographer Theresa Whistler describes him as "tall, gangling, ugly, solemn, punctilious". He won the

Hawthornden Prize The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender, who was born at Hawthornden Castle. Authors under the age of 41 are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature", which can be written ...

in 1920 with ''Poems 1909-1920''. His ''Last Hours'' was set to music by

Ivor Gurney Ivor Bertie Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was an English poet and composer, particularly of songs. He was born and raised in Gloucester. He suffered from bipolar disorder through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in ps ...

Works

* ''Happy is England'' (1914) * ''Presage of Victory'' (1916) * ''Stone Trees'' (1916) * ''The Moderns : Essays in Literary Criticism'' (1917). Essays on

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

Thomas Hardy,

Maurice Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in ...

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

, Joseph Conrad,

Coventry Patmore Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (23 July 1823 – 26 November 1896) was an English poet and literary critic. He is best known for his book of poetry '' The Angel in the House'', a narrative poem about the Victorian ideal of a happy marriage. ...

Francis Thompson Francis Joseph Thompson (16 December 1859 – 13 November 1907) was an English poet and Catholic mystic. At the behest of his father, a doctor, he entered medical school at the age of 18, but at 26 left home to pursue his talent as a writer a ...

, and

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

. * ''Memories of Childhood and other Poems'' (1919) * ''Poems'' 1909-1920 (1920) * ''Music'' (1921) * ''The Red Path, A Narrative, And The Wounded Bird'' (1921) * ''The Grove and Other Poems'' (1925) * ''Prince Absalom'' (1925) * ''Collected Poems'' (1928) * ''Last Poems'' (1930)

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Freeman, John 1880 births 1929 deaths English essayists Place of death missing Writers from London British male essayists English male poets 20th-century English poets 20th-century essayists 20th-century English male writers English male non-fiction writers