Leopold Hamilton Myers (6 September 1881 – 7 April 1944) was a British novelist.

Life

Leckhampton House Since 1961 Leckhampton has been the residential site for postgraduate students of Corpus Christi College of the University of Cambridge, England. It consists of the late-19th-century Leckhampton House, the George Thomson Building, dating from 1 ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

into a cultured family; his father was the writer

Frederic William Henry Myers Frederic William Henry Myers (6 February 1843 – 17 January 1901) was a British poet, classicist, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. Myers' work on psychical research and his ideas about a "subliminal self" ...

(1843-1901) and his mother the photographer

Eveleen Tennant Eveleen Tennant Myers (21 November 1856, Russell Square, London – 12 March 1937, London) was an English photographer. Biography Tennant was the third daughter of Charles Tennant (1796–1873) and Gertrude Barbara Rich Collier (1819–1918). ...

(1856-1937).Cresswell (2004) He was named after his godfather, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. He was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

. His trilogy/tetralogy ''The Root and the Flower'', set in India at the time of Akbar, is his major work and was recognised by the award of the 1935

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

for fiction. He did not visit India, and his writings about it have been seen by some critics as reflecting his own intellectual milieu and its concerns. He was independently wealthy from his mid-20s, travelled and began to write. In 1908 he married the American Elsie Palmer (1873–1955), daughter of

General William Palmer William Jackson Palmer (September 18, 1836 – March 13, 1909) was an American civil engineer, veteran of the Civil War, industrialist, and philanthropist. During the American Civil War, he was promoted to brevet brigadier general and rece ...

, and a friend of John Singer Sargent, who painted her. He made many friends of different kinds, and late in life broke with most of them. In the 1930s he wrote in sympathy with Marxist thought, and became increasingly pessimistic in his outlook. He committed suicide on 7 April 1944 by taking an overdose of

Veronal Barbital (or barbitone), marketed under the brand names Veronal for the pure acid and Medinal for the sodium salt, was the first commercially available barbiturate. It was used as a sleeping aid (hypnotic) from 1903 until the mid-1950s. The chemic ...

.Caroline Moorehead
''Iris Origo: marchesa of Val d'Orcia''
Boston: David R. Godine, 2002 (1st ed. London: John Murray, 2000). . p. 256. He was on the edge of the Bloomsbury group, and knew L. P. Hartley,

Aelfrida Tillyard Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard (5 October 1883 – 12 December 1959) was a British author, Medium (spirituality), medium, lecturer on Comparative Religion and associated religious topics, spiritual advisor and self-styled mystic. Early li ...

and

Max Plowman Mark Plowman, generally known as Max Plowman, (1 September 1883 – 3 June 1941) was a British writer and pacifist. Life to 1918 He was born in Northumberland Park, Tottenham, Middlesex. He left school at 16, and worked for a decade in his fath ...

. He kept up a lengthy correspondence with

Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures ...

. Other friends were David Lindsay,

Frank Dobson Frank Gordon Dobson (15 March 1940 – 11 November 2019) was a British Labour Party politician. As Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St. Pancras from 1979 to 2015, he served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Health from 1997 t ...

, and Charles le Gai Eaton. By an anonymous loan he helped George Orwell travel to Morocco in 1938, to convalesce from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

.Jeffrey Meyers, ''George Orwell: The Critical Heritage'' (1997), p. 16. The designer EQ Nicholson was his daughter.

Works

*''Arvat'' (1908) verse drama *''The Orissers'' (1922) *''Clio'' (1925) *''The Root and the Flower'' **''The Near and the Far'' (1929) **''Prince Jali'' (1931) **''Rajah Amar'' (1935), published as ''The Root and the Flower'' *''Strange Glory'' (1936) *''The Pool Of Vishnu'' (1940) now sometimes included as part 4 of ''The Root and the Flower''

References

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Notes

External links

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Enotes page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Myers, Lh People educated at Eton College Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge 1881 births 1944 deaths James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients British male poets English male novelists 20th-century English poets 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English male writers 1944 suicides Drug-related suicides in England Barbiturates-related deaths