Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong (29 June 1912 – 23 September 1970), better known as John Gawsworth (and also sometimes known as T. I. F. Armstrong), was a British writer, poet and compiler of anthologies, both of poetry and of short stories. He also used the pseudonym Orpheus Scrannel (alluding to the "scrannel pipes" in Milton's ''

Lycidas "Lycidas" () is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, ''Justa Edouardo King Naufrago'', dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a friend of Milton at Cambridge who dro ...

''). He became the king of the unrecognized

micronation A micronation is a political entity whose members claim that they belong to an independent nation or sovereign state, but which lacks legal recognition by world governments or major international organizations. Micronations are classified ...

Redonda Redonda is an uninhabited Caribbean island that is a part of Antigua and Barbuda, in the Leeward Islands, West Indies. The island is about long, wide, and is high at its highest point. This small island lies between the islands of Nevis and ...

in 1947 and became known as King Juan I.

Early life

Armstrong grew up in Colville Gardens,

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road Ma ...

, and at number 40 Royal Crescent, Holland Park, London. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School.

Career

As a very young man he moved in London literary circles championing traditional verse and writing as opposed to

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

. He ran the Twyn Barlwm Press, a small press publishing some well-known poets, its title inspired by the mountain Twyn Barlwm in South Wales, beloved by one of his literary idols

Arthur Machen Arthur Machen (; 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His ...

. Machen was one of the surviving writers of the 1890s he admired and befriended. Gawsworth's longest piece of written work was a biography of Machen, but he could find no publisher for it in the thirties. It was finally published by Tartarus Press in 2005. Other writers Gawsworth admired were Edgar Jepson and

M. P. Shiel Matthew Phipps Shiell (21 July 1865 – 17 February 1947), known as M. P. Shiel, was a British writer. His legal surname remained "Shiell" though he adopted the shorter version as a ''de facto'' pen name. He is remembered mainly for supernatura ...

, whose literary executor he would later become. In 1931 he had the poem ''In Winter'' by

W. H. Davies William Henry Davies (3 July 1871 – 26 September 1940) was a Welsh poet and writer, who spent much of his life as a tramp or hobo in the United Kingdom and the United States, yet became one of the most popular poets of his time. His themes inc ...

privately printed in a limited edition of 290 numbered copies, illustrated by

Edward Carrick Edward Carrick (born Edward Anthony Craig; 3 January 1905 – 21 January 1998) was an English art designer for film, an author and illustrator. Carrick was born in London. His father was Edward Gordon Craig, the theatre practitioner and stage d ...

and all individually signed by Davies. A further special limited edition of 15 were printed on handmade paper and also hand-coloured by Carrick. Three companion titles appeared in similar editions at the same time: ''In Spring'' by

Edith Sitwell Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...

, ''In Summer'' by

Edmund Blunden Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was a ...

and ''In Autumn'' by Herbert Palmer. He gave

Hugh MacDiarmid Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid (), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish Rena ...

a roof over his head in London in 1934 (MacDiarmid returned the compliment in ''When the Rat-Race Is Over; an essay in honour of the fiftieth birthday of John Gawsworth'' (1962)). At this time he was very much involved in compiling (usually anonymously) story collections, generally of the

fiction of the supernatural Supernatural fiction or supernaturalist fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that exploits or is centered on supernatural themes, often contradicting naturalist assumptions of the real world. Description In its broadest definition, super ...

. Poetry collections of this time were ''Lyrics to Kingcup'' (1932), ''Mishka and Madeleine. A Poem Sequence for Marcia'' (1932), ''Poems 1930–1932'' (1936), ''New Poems'' 1939. Later he published through the Richards Press. He met and befriended the young

Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial p ...

in 1932, when Gawsworth was living in

Denmark Street Denmark Street is a street on the edge of London's West End running from Charing Cross Road to St Giles High Street. It is near St Giles in the Fields Church and Tottenham Court Road station. The street was developed in the late 17th centu ...

. He made friends as well as enemies ( Dylan Thomas,

George Woodcock George Woodcock (; May 8, 1912 – January 28, 1995) was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, a philosopher, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet and published several volumes of travel wri ...

) throughout literary London.

WW2

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he served, under the alias T E Shavian, in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

as an aircraftman in North Africa. As one of the

Cairo poets The British Army presence in Egypt in World War II had, as a side effect, the concentration of a group of Cairo poets. There had been a noticeable literary group in Cairo before the war in North Africa broke out, including university academics. Poss ...

, he made a more serious name for himself, being part of the

Salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

group. Later he returned to a picturesque eccentricity as a

Fitzrovia Fitzrovia () is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urban ...

n. His ''Collected Poems'' appeared in 1949. A later volume is ''Toreros'' (1990). The ''Known Signatures'' anthology (reactionary, quite literally) was prompted by the Michael Roberts ''New Country'' collection. The ''Edwardian Poetry Book One'' (1936) (edited anonymously) and ''Neo-Georgian Poetry 1936–1937'' (edited anonymously by Gawsworth ) are extraordinary for their retrospective vision.

King of Redonda

As literary executor to

, Armstrong also inherited the throne of the

Kingdom of Redonda The Kingdom of Redonda is the name for the micronation associated with the tiny uninhabited Caribbean island of Redonda. The island lies between the islands of Nevis and Montserrat, within the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain, in the Wes ...

styling himself H.M. Juan I.Wynne-Tyson, Jon
"Two Kings of Redonda: M. P. Shiel and John Gawsworth"
''Books at Iowa'', no. 36 (April 1982): 15–22. The independent publisher Jon Wynne-Tyson became Gawsworth's literary executor in 1970, also becoming H.M. Juan II but Wynne-Tyson "abdicated" in favour of the Spanish novelist and translator

Javier Marías Javier Marías Franco (20 September 1951 – 11 September 2022) was a Spanish author, translator, and columnist. Marías published fifteen novels, including '' A Heart So White'' (''Corazón tan blanco,'' 1992'')'' and '' Tomorrow in the Battle ...

— H.M. Xavier I – who became both Shiel's and Gawsworth's literary executor. According to John Sutherland's ''Lives of the Novelists'', "the excessively minor poet John Gawsworth" kept the ashes of M. P. Shiel "in a biscuit tin on his mantelpiece, dropping a pinch as condiment into the food of any particularly honoured guest".

Poets in ''Known Signatures'' (1932)

– A. E. Coppard –

– Lord Alfred Douglas –

Ernest Dowson Ernest Christopher Dowson (2 August 186723 February 1900) was an English poet, novelist, and short-story writer who is often associated with the Decadent movement. Biography Ernest Dowson was born in Lee, then in Kent, in 1867. His great-uncle ...

– John Drinkwater – John Freeman – John Gawsworth –

Wilfrid Gibson Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (2 October 1878 – 26 May 1962) was a British Georgian poet, associated with World War I but also the author of much later work. Early work Gibson was born in Hexham, Northumberland, and left the north for London in 1914 ...

– John Gray –

Lionel Johnson Lionel Pigot Johnson (15 March 1867 – 4 October 1902) was an English poet, essayist, and critic (although he claimed Irish descent and wrote on Celtic themes). Life Johnson was born in Broadstairs, Kent, England in 1867 and educated at Win ...

–

Richard Barham Middleton Richard Barham Middleton (28 October 1882 – 1 December 1911) was an English poet and author. He is remembered most for his short ghost stories, in particular "The Ghost Ship". Biography Born in Staines, Middlesex, Middleton was educated at Cr ...

–

Harold Monro Harold Edward Monro (14 March 1879 – 16 March 1932) was an English poet born in Brussels, Belgium. As the proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London, he helped many poets to bring their work before the public. Life and career Monro was born ...

– Herbert Palmer –

– Leonard Strong – Edward Thomas – Theodore Wratislaw

Poets in ''Edwardian Poets'' (1936)

Roy Campbell –

Frederick Carter Sir Frederick Bowker Terrington Carter, (February 12, 1819 – March 1, 1900) was a lawyer and Premier of Newfoundland from 1865 to 1870 and from 1874 to 1878. Career Carter was the son of Peter Weston Carter''Volume one, p. 363, Encyclopedia ...

– Wilfred Rowland Childe – Frank Eyre – John Gawsworth – Michael Juste –

–

Hamish MacLaren Hamish is a Scottish masculine given name. It is the anglicized form of the vocative case of the Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any ...

– Mary Francis McHugh – R. L. Mégroz – E. H. W. Meyerstein – Herbert Palmer – Ruth Pitter – Tristram Rainey – A. S. J. Tessimond – E. H. Visiak –

Anna Wickham Anna Wickham was the pseudonym of Edith Alice Mary Harper (1883 – 1947), an English/Australian poet who was a pioneer of modernist poetry, and one of the most important female poets writing during the first half of the twentieth century. She w ...

Anthologies edited (Fiction)

* 1932 (October) ''Strange Assembly: New Stories of 1932'' (Unicorn Press). The only anthology credited under the name John Gawsworth. Despite the subtitle, this is a mixture of new and reprint stories. Some of the contents were reprinted in Gawsworth's anonymous ''Thrills, Crimes and Mysteries'' (1935). * 1933 (January) ''Full Score: Twenty-five Stories.'' (Rich & Cowan). Non-fantastic stories. The only anthology credited under the name T. I. Fytton-Armstrong. * 1934 (December) ''New Tales of Horror by Eminent Authors.'' (Hutchinson). Anthology edited anonymously. despite the emphasis on the "New," thirteen of the thirty stories had seen earlier periodical publication. * 1935 (month?) ''Thrills, Crimes and Mysteries: A Specially Selected Collection of Sixty-Three Complete Stories by Well-Known Writers.'' (Associated Newspapers). Anthology edited anonymously and illustrated by Norman Keane. Includes tales reprinted from ''Strange Assembly'' (1932). * 1935 (month?) ''Thrills: Twenty Specially Selected New Stories of Crime, Mystery and Horror.'' (Associated Newspapers). Anthology edited anonymously and illustrated by Norman Keane. * 1936 (month?) ''Masterpiece of Thrills'' (Daily Express). Anthology edited anonymously. One collaboration in this volume, "Kametis and Evelpis," was by someone called J. Leslie Mitchell, writing with Fytton Armstong, Gawsworth's real name. And Gawsworth as Gawsworth added his name to three tales by

: "Dr. Todoro Karadja", "The Mystery of the Red Road", and "The Hanging of Ernest Clark." The first of these borrows from "He Wakes an Echo" in Shiel's short story collection, ''The Pale Ape and Other Pulses'' (1911). Reportedly this book was a newspaper give-away. * 1936 (month?). ''Crimes, Creeps and Thrills:Forty-Five New Stories of Detection, Horror and Adventure by Eminent Modern Authors.'' (E. H. Samuel). With 30 unattributed illustrations. * 1945 (October). ''Twenty Tales of Terror: Great New Stories'' (Calcutta: Susil Gupta). This anthology reprints fourteen stories from ''Thrills, Crimes and Mysteries'' (1935) and six stories from ''Thrills'' (1936).

References

External links

The Lyric Struggles of John GawsworthJohn Gawsworth Collection
at the

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...

at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...

Shiel's Collaborators III: John Gawsworth
*
John Gawsworth collection
at University of Victoria Special Collections and University Archives * Archival material at {{DEFAULTSORT:Gawsworth, John 1912 births 1970 deaths Micronational leaders People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood Royal Air Force personnel of World War II 20th-century British poets British male poets 20th-century British male writers