John Stewart Collis (6 February 1900 – 2 March 1984) was an Irish biographer, rural author, and pioneer of the

ecology movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists advoc ...

. He is known for his book ''The Worm Forgives the Plough'' based on his wartime experience working in the

Land Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

in the

Second World War 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 opposin ...

Early life, biographer

The son of an Irish solicitor, Collis was born at Kilmore,

Killiney Killiney () is an affluent seaside resort and suburb in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Ireland. It lies south of neighbouring Dalkey, east of Ballybrack and Sallynoggin and north of Shankill. The place grew around the 11th century Killiney Churc ...

on the borders of

County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...

and

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by t ...

, Ireland. He was educated at Bray preparatory school,

Rugby School Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. Up ...

and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

. At the Oxford Union he learnt the art of public speaking, hearing politicians and authors including

H. H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom f ...

G. K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, ''Time'' observed: "Wh ...

Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...

and

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

in the debating chamber. In the 1920s he became a close friend of the Guernsey-born G.B. Edwards, who lodged at his flat in Guildford Street. Both men became protégés of

John Middleton Murry John Middleton Murry (6 August 1889 – 12 March 1957) was an English writer. He was a prolific author, producing more than 60 books and thousands of essays and reviews on literature, social issues, politics, and religion during his lifetime. ...

and contributed to ''The Adelphi'' magazine but later drifted apart. Collis, however, wrote an enthusiastic review of Edwards's ''

The Book of Ebenezer Le Page ''The Book of Ebenezer Le Page'' is a novel by English writer Gerald Basil Edwards first published in the United Kingdom by Hamish Hamilton in 1981, and in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf in the same year. It has since been published by Pen ...

'' in the ''Spectator'' when this novel was posthumously published in 1981. Collis's first book, a biography of

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 ...

, was published in 1925, followed by biographies of

Havelock Ellis Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in ...

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty p ...

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

, the Carlyles and

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

.''

The Oxford Companion to English Literature ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'' first published in 1932, edited by the retired diplomat Sir Paul Harvey (1869–1948), was the earliest of the Oxford Companions to appear. It is currently in its seventh edition (2009), edited by D ...

'', ed.

Margaret Drabble Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, (born 5 June 1939) is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer. Drabble's books include '' The Millstone'' (1965), which won the following year's John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and ''Jer ...

Country writing

Collis is remembered largely for ''While Following the Plough'' (1946) and ''Down to Earth'' (1947: as one volume, ''The Worm Forgives the Plough'', 1973). ''While Following the Plough'' was inspired by the years he chose to spend working as a farm labourer in the

(which mainly consisted of women, known as "land girls") in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

and

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

during the

. He worked at J. G. Maynard's farm at Stonegate in Sussex in 1940 for a year, and then moved to

Tarrant Hinton Tarrant Hinton is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It is situated in the Tarrant Valley, approximately northeast of Blandford Forum. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 160. The villa ...

in Dorset for the rest of the war. The manuscript of the book was rejected by twelve publishers. At last,

Jonathan Cape Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...

accepted it, but requested much revision. Collis waited for a while and returned the manuscript largely unchanged, thanking the publisher for their suggestions; Jonathan Cape answered saying they were "delighted with the improvements". ''Down to Earth'' was inspired by the year he spent working for

Rolf Gardiner Henry Rolf Gardiner (5 November 1902 – 26 November 1971) was an English rural revivalist, helping to bring back folk dance styles including Morris dancing and sword dancing. He founded groups significant in the British history of organic far ...

after the war, thinning a fourteen-acre wood on his own, using only an axe and other hand tools.

Reception

The novelist

states that Collis wrote with imagination and authenticity about rural life, and that Collis's autobiography ''Bound upon a Course'' brought him belated recognition as a pioneer in the

. The

travel writer The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern period ...

Robert Macfarlane praises his country writing as follows: The biographer

Michael Holroyd Sir Michael de Courcy Fraser Holroyd (born 27 August 1935) is an English biographer. Early life and education Holroyd was born in London, the son of Basil de Courcy Fraser Holroyd (a descendant of Sir George Sowley Holroyd, Justice of the King' ...

comments that ''While Following the Plough'' and ''Down to Earth'' were "acclaimed on their appearance", and are now considered classics.

Family

The writer and

paediatrician Pediatrics (American and British English differences, also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, Adolescence, adolescents, and young adults. In the United King ...

Robert Collis William Robert Fitzgerald Collis (1900–1975) was an Irish doctor and writer. As an author he was known as Robert Collis. As a doctor, he was commonly known as Dr Bob Collis. Maurice Collis was his elder brother. John Stewart Collis was his tw ...

was his twin and

Maurice Collis Maurice Stewart Collis (10 January 1889 – 12 January 1973) was an administrator in Burma (Myanmar) when it was part of the British Empire, and afterwards a writer on Southeast Asia, China and other historical subjects. Life He was born in Du ...

, writer and biographer, was his elder brother.

Legacy

In 1986

Richard Ingrams Richard Reid Ingrams (born 19 August 1937 in Chelsea, London, Chelsea, London) is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satire, satirical magazine ''Private Eye (magazine), Private Eye'', and founding editor of ' ...

wrote ''John Stewart Collis: A Memoir'' (Chatto & Windus). A 2009 edition of ''The Worm Forgives the Plough'', with an introduction by Robert Macfarlane, was issued by Vintage Classics.John Stewart Collis
vintageclassics.com.au

Bibliography

Individual Works

* ''Shaw'' (1925) * ''Forward to Nature'' (1927) * ''Farewell to Argument'' (1935) * ''The Sounding Cataract'' (1936) * ''An Irishman's England'' (1937) * ''While Following the Plough'' (1946) * ''Down to Earth'' (1947) * ''The Triumph of the Tree'' (1950) * ''The Moving Waters'' (1955) * ''Paths of Light'' (UK, 1959) / ''The World of Light'' (US, 1960) * ''An Artist of Life'' (1959) * ''Marriage and Genius: Strindberg and Tolstoy, Studies in Tragi-Comedy'' (1963) * ''Leo Tolstoy'' (1969) * ''Bound upon a Course: An Autobiography'' (1971) * ''The Carlyles'' (1971) * ''Christopher Columbus'' (1976) * ''Living with a Stranger'' (1978)

Omnibus Editions

* ''The Vision of Glory'' (1972), containing selections from — ** ''The Triumph of the Tree'' ** ''The Moving Waters'' ** ''Paths of Light'' * ''The Worm Forgives the Plough'' (1973) ** ''While Following the Plough'' ** ''Down to Earth''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collis, John Stewart 1900 births 1984 deaths English biographers People from Killiney English nature writers 20th-century biographers English male non-fiction writers 20th-century English male writers