Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel ''

Under the Volcano ''Under the Volcano'' is a novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957) published in 1947. The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the Mexican city of Quauhnahuac, on the Day of the Dead in Novemb ...

'', which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list."Malcolm Lowry"
''

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; french: L'Encyclopédie canadienne) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with the support of Canadian Heritage. Available f ...

'', 9 April 2008.

Biography

Early years in England

Lowry was born in New Brighton, Wirral, the fourth son of Evelyn Boden and Arthur Lowry, a cotton broker with roots in Cumberland. In 1912, the family moved to

Caldy Caldy is a small, affluent village on the Wirral Peninsula, England, south-east of West Kirby. It is part of the West Kirby & Thurstaston Ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral and is in the parliamentary constituency of Wirral West. At the ...

, on another part of the

Wirral peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and is bounded by the River Dee to the west (forming the boundary with Wales), the River Mersey to ...

. Their home was a

mock Tudor Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

estate on two acres with a tennis court, small golf course and a maid, a cook and a nanny. Lowry was said to have felt neglected by his mother, and was closest to his brother. He began drinking alcohol at the age of 14. In his teens Lowry was a boarder at

The Leys School The Leys School is a co-educational independent school in Cambridge, England. It is a day and boarding school for about 574 pupils between the ages of eleven and eighteen, and a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. Histo ...

in Cambridge,''A Dictionary of Twentieth Century World Biography.'' United Kingdom:

Book Club Associates Book Club Associates (BCA) was a mail-order and online book selling company in the United Kingdom. It came to dominate the mail-order book-club business in the U.K. in the 1970s and 1980s through extensive advertising in Sunday newspaper colour su ...

, 1992, p. 351. the school made famous by the novel ''

Goodbye, Mr. Chips ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' is a novella about the life of a school teacher, Mr. Chipping, written by English writer James Hilton and first published by Hodder & Stoughton in October 1934. It has been adapted into two feature films and two televi ...

''. At age 15, he won the junior golf championship at the

Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake The Royal Liverpool Golf Club is a golf club in Wirral in Merseyside, England. It was founded in 1869 on what was then the racecourse of the Liverpool Hunt Club. It received the "Royal" designation in 1871 due to the patronage of the Duke of ...

. His father expected him to go to Cambridge and enter the family business, but Malcolm wanted to experience the world and convinced his father to let him work as a deckhand on a tramp steamer to the Far East. In May 1927, his parents drove him to the

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

waterfront and, while the local press watched, waved goodbye as he set sail on the freighter S.S. ''Pyrrhus''. The five months at sea gave him stories to incorporate into his first novel, ''

Ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afg ...

''. After returning to Britain Lowry enrolled at St Catharine's College, Cambridge in autumn 1929, in an attempt to placate his parents. He spent little time at the university, but excelled in writing, graduating in 1931 with a 3rd class honours degree in English. During his first term, his roommate, Paul Fitte, took his own life. Fitte had wanted a homosexual relationship, which Lowry refused. Lowry felt responsible for his death and was haunted by it for the rest of his life. Lowry was already well travelled; besides his sailing experience, between terms he made visits to America, to befriend his literary idol,

Conrad Aiken Conrad Potter Aiken (August 5, 1889 – August 17, 1973) was an American writer and poet, honored with a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and was United States Poet Laureate from 1950 to 1952. His published works include poetry, short ...

, and to Germany. After Cambridge, Lowry lived briefly in London, existing on the fringes of the vibrant Thirties literary scene and meeting Dylan Thomas. He met his first wife, Jan Gabrial, in Spain. They were married in France in 1934. Theirs was a turbulent union, especially due to his drinking, and because she resented homosexuals attracted to her husband.

United States, Mexico, Canada

After an estrangement, Lowry followed Jan to New York City where, almost incoherent after an alcohol-induced breakdown, he checked into Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in 1936 – experiences which later became the basis of his novella ''Lunar Caustic''. When the authorities began to take notice of him, he fled to avoid deportation and then went to Hollywood, where he tried screenwriting. At about that time he began writing ''

''. Lowry and Jan moved to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, arriving in the city of

Cuernavaca Cuernavaca (; nci-IPA, Cuauhnāhuac, kʷawˈnaːwak "near the woods", ) is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. The city is located around a 90-minute drive south of Mexico City using the Federal Highway 95D. The na ...

on 2 November 1936, the

Day of the Dead The Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos or ''Día de los Muertos'') is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It is widely obser ...

, in a final attempt to salvage their marriage. Lowry continued to drink heavily though he also devoted more energy to his writing. The effort to save their marriage failed. Jan saw that he wanted a mother figure, and she did not want to mother him. She then ran off with another man in late 1937. Alone in

Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...

, Lowry entered into another period of dark alcoholic excess, culminating in his deportation from Mexico in the summer of 1938. His family put him up at the Hotel Normandie in Los Angeles where he continued working on his novel and met his second wife, the actress and writer

Margerie Bonner Margerie Bonner (February 17, 1905 – September 28, 1988) was an American actress, scriptwriter, and novelist. She is best known as the wife of Malcolm Lowry and for her support of the author while he wrote his best known novel, ''Under the Volc ...

. His father sent his rent checks directly to the Normandie's hotel manager. In August Lowry moved to

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, British Columbia, Canada, leaving his manuscript behind. Later, Margerie moved up to Vancouver, bringing his manuscript, and the following year they married. At first, they lived in an attic apartment in the city. When

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 opposin ...

broke out, Lowry tried to enlist but was rejected. Correspondence between Lowry and Canada's Governor-General Lord Tweedsmuir (who was better known as the writer John Buchan) during this time resulted in Lowry's writing several articles for the Vancouver Province newspaper. The couple lived and wrote in a squatter's shack on the beach near the community of Dollarton, North Vancouver, north of Vancouver. In 1944, the beach shack was destroyed by a fire, and Lowry was injured in his efforts to save manuscripts. Margerie was an entirely positive influence, editing Lowry's work skillfully and making sure that he ate as well as drank (she drank, too). The couple traveled to Europe, America and the Caribbean, and while Lowry continued to drink heavily, this seems to have been a relatively peaceful and productive period. It lasted until 1954, when a final nomadic period ensued, embracing New York, London and other places. During their travels to Europe, Lowry twice attempted to strangle Margerie. He lived in Canada for much of his active writing career and is thus also considered a significant figure in Canadian literature. He won the

Governor General's Award for English-language fiction The Governor General's Award for English-language fiction is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a fiction book written in English. Malcolm Lowry's gravestone

Lowry died in June 1957, in a rented cottage in the village of

Ripe Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE, French for "European IP Networks") is a forum open to all parties with an interest in the technical development of the Internet. The RIPE community's objective is to ensure that the administrative and technical coor ...

, Sussex, where he was living with wife Margerie after having returned to England in 1955, ill and impoverished. The coroner's verdict was

death by misadventure In the United Kingdom, death by misadventure is the recorded manner of death for an accidental death, caused by a risk taken voluntarily. Misadventure in English law, as recorded by coroners and on death certificates and associated documents, ...

, and the causes of death given as inhalation of stomach contents, barbiturate poisoning, and excessive consumption of alcohol.
Bowker, G. (2004), "Foul Play at White Cottage", ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'', 20 February 2004 – outlines the peculiar circumstances of Lowry's death. It has been suggested that his death was a suicide. Inconsistencies in the accounts given by his wife at various times about what happened on the night of his death have also given rise to suspicions of murder. Lowry is buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist in Ripe. Lowry reputedly wrote his own epitaph: "Here lies Malcolm Lowry, late of the Bowery, whose prose was flowery, and often glowery. He lived nightly, and drank daily, and died playing the ukulele," but the epitaph does not appear on his gravestone.

Legacy

In 2017 the British Library acquired Malcolm Lowry papers from his first wife Jan Gabrial. Lowry's literary papers had been left in the possession of Gabrial's mother, Emily Vanderheim, in 1936 and passed to Gabrial on her mother's death. Some further items were then acquired from Priscilla Bonner, the sister of Margerie Bonner Lowry. The archive contains literary papers of Lowry; personal papers of Jan Gabrial, primarily relating to her marriage to Lowry; and select items relating to Margerie Bonner Lowry, Lowry's second wife.

Writings

Lowry published little during his lifetime, in comparison with the extensive collection of unfinished manuscripts he left. Of his two novels, ''

'' (1947) is now widely accepted as his masterpiece and one of the great works of the 20th century (number 11 on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th century). ''

'' (1933), written while Lowry was still an undergraduate, follows a young man's first sea voyage and his determination to gain the crew's acceptance. A collection of short stories, ''Hear Us, O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place'' (1961), was published after Lowry's death. The scholar and poet

Earle Birney Earle Alfred Birney (13 May 1904 – 3 September 1995) was a Canadian poet and novelist, who twice won the Governor General's Award, Canada's top literary honour, for his poetry. Life Born in Calgary, Alberta, and raised on a farm in Eri ...

edited ''Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry'' (1962). Birney also collaborated with Lowry's widow in editing the novella ''Lunar Caustic'' (1968) for re-publication. It is a conflation of several earlier pieces concerned with Bellevue Hospital, which Lowry was in the process of rewriting as a complete novel. With Douglas Day, Lowry's first biographer, Lowry's widow also completed and edited the novels ''Dark as the Grave Wherein my Friend Is Laid'' (1968) and '' October Ferry to Gabriola'' (1970) from Lowry's manuscripts. The ''Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry'', edited by his widow and Harvey Breit, was released in 1965, followed in 1995–96 by the two-volume ''Sursum Corda! The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry'', edited by Sherrill E. Grace. Scholarly editions of Lowry's final work in progress, ''La Mordida'' ("The Bribe"), and his screen adaptation of

F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...

's ''Tender Is the Night'' have also been published. '' Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry'' (1976) is an Oscar-nominated

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

documentary directed by

Donald Brittain Donald Code Brittain, (June 10, 1928 – July 21, 1989) was a film director and producer with the National Film Board of Canada. Career ''Fields of Sacrifice'' (1964) is considered Brittain's first major film as director. His other notable ...

and John Kramer. It opens with the inquest into Lowry's "death by misadventure", and then moves back in time to trace the writer's life. Selections from Lowry's novel are read by

Richard Burton Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable pe ...

amid images shot in Mexico, the United States, Canada and England. In 2001, Lowry's first wife Jan Gabrial revealed in her memoir that she had an early draft of Lowry's novel ''In Ballast to the White Sea,'' which was thought to have been lost. According to Professor Dean Irvine at Dalhousie University, Lowry had given an early copy of the novel to Gabrial's mother before the couple went to Mexico in 1936. Lowry's working copy of the manuscript was then lost in a fire. In October 2014 it was published for the first time by

University of Ottawa Press The University of Ottawa Press (french: Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa) is a bilingual university press located in Ottawa, Ontario. It publishes approximately 25-30 books annually in both English and French. The UOP is the only fully ...

and a launch was held at the

Bluecoat Arts Centre Built in 1716–17 as a charity school, Bluecoat Chambers in School Lane is the oldest surviving building in central Liverpool, England. Following the Liverpool Blue Coat School's move to another site in 1906, the building was rented from 1907 ...

''The Voyage That Never Ends''

Lowry envisioned ''The Voyage That Never Ends'' as his magnum opus: an epic cycle encompassing his existing novels and stories as well as projected works, with ''Under the Volcano'' as its centrepiece. He spent much of his writing life crafting his body of work into a greater, thematically cohesive whole, which he called ''The Voyage That Never Ends''. It was to rival the epics of other great modernists, and he referred to it in several personal annotations and letters as the concept evolved over many years and works-in-progress. An early typescript has the sequence's contents listed as: * The Ordeal of Sigbjorn Wilderness I – * Untitled Sea Novel * Lunar Caustic – * Under the Volcano – * Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid * Eridanus * La Mordida – * The Ordeal of Sigbjorn Wilderness II Lowry labelled ''Under the Volcano'' as "The Centre" while marking ''Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid'', ''Eridanus'', and ''La Mordida'' as "Trilogy". In addition, ''Eridanus'' (the name Lowry gave his West Coast surroundings, referring "to both the stellar constellation and mythical river to which Faeton was cast down by gods") seems to consist of the story collection ''Hear Us Oh Lord From Heaven Thy Dwelling Place'', the poems of ''The Lighthouse Invites the Storm'', and "other tales, poems, a play, etc." As well, ''The Ordeal of Sigbjorn Wilderness'' was a novel he planned after spending time in a hospital after breaking his leg in 1949: "His experiences there due to a mixture of alcohol withdrawal and drugs were as traumatic as his time in Bellevue in 1936. As ever Malc turned these experiences into literature which he initially entitled the 'Atomic Rhythm' which eventually became ''The Ordeal of Sigbjørn Wilderness'', which was never developed beyond a rough sketch and remains unpublished." His plans for ''The Voyage That Never Ends'' ultimately grew into a 34-page outline that he gave to the editor Albert Erskine, with whom he was friends. It was this letter and outline that secured for Lowry a long-term contract with Random House. Lowry's alcoholism and early death, however, prevented him from finishing his grand project. Several of the works intended as part of the sequence were rewritten many times over many years—he worked on ''Lunar Caustic'', for instance, from the 1930s until his death, first titled ''The Last Address'', then ''Swinging the Maelstrom'', and finally ''Lunar Caustic''. The posthumous publications of his unfinished manuscripts have brought several more parts of ''The Voyage That Never Ends'' to light, though these vary in completeness and Lowry's final intentions with these works can only be speculated on. The published version of ''Lunar Caustic'', for instance, was compiled by his widow Margerie Lowry and poet

from "two distinctly different manuscripts. One bore the first title and was last worked on in 1942–44, while the other had the second name and was last edited by the (at the time living) dead author in 1951–52." In the intervening years, the story had undergone vast changes in style and thematic emphasis. A scholarly edition was eventually published in 2013 that includes the three major versions with annotation on the history of the text's composition. When the novel ''

In Ballast to the White Sea ''In Ballast to the White Sea'' was an unpublished novel by Malcolm Lowry, his second, which was Lost literary work, lost in a fire which consumed his house in 1944. By that time the manuscript consisted of 1,000 pages which had taken him nine year ...

'' was finally published in 2014—after being thought lost for decades—it represented only an early draft of the 1000 page manuscript that had been destroyed in the same shack fire that nearly destroyed ''

'', and as such does not represent the more complete text Lowry had been working on for nine years. ''La Mordida'' was inspired by Lowry's deportation from Mexico in the mid-1940s. "The central narrative of ''La Mordida'' involves a descent into the abyss of self, culminating in the protagonist's symbolic rebirth at the book's end. Lowry planned to use this basic narrative pattern as the springboard for innumerable questions about such concerns as art, identity, the nature of existence, political issues, and alcoholism. Above all, ''La Mordida'' was to have been a metafictional work about an author who sees no point in living events if he cannot write about them and who is not only unable to write but suspects that he is just a character in a novel." It was published in 1996 as notes, sketches, outlines, and rough chapters—it was to feature the autobiographical character Sigbjorn Wilderness. ''Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid'' was published only twelve years after Lowry's death, and also featured Sigbjorn Wilderness. It was "collated from a huge volume of notes ... almost every chapter exist ngin three or four different forms." Because so much of ''The Voyage That Never Ends'' was left incomplete (much of it hardly begun, barely going beyond his initial conceptual framework) what exists only hints at the final form Lowry intended for his magnum opus.

Works

* ''

'' (1933), novel; published by Jonathan Cape * ''

'' (1947), novel; made into a film by John Huston in 1984

Posthumous

* ''Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place'' (1961), short story collection * ''Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry'' (1962) * ''Lunar Caustic'' (1963), novella, French language edition preceding by five years the English edition * ''Lunar Caustic'' (1968), novella * ''Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid'' (1968), novel * '' October Ferry to Gabriola'' (1970), novel * ''The Cinema of Malcolm Lowry: A Scholarly Edition of Malcolm Lowry's "Tender is the Night"'' edited by Miquel Mota & Paul Tiessen (1990) * ''The 1940 Under The Volcano'' (1994), novel * ''La Mordida'' edited by Patrick A. McCarthy (1996), novel * ''In Ballast to the White Sea'' (2014), novel; Edited by Patrick A. McCarthy, Notes by Chris Ackerley, Foreword by Vik Doyen,

, * ''Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry'' -City Lights Publishers (2017)

References

Sources

* Asals, Frederick, ''The making of Malcolm Lowry's Under the volcano'' (University of Georgia: Athens, 1997) * Bareham, Tony, ''Modern Novelists: Malcolm Lowry'' (St Martins: New York, 1989) * Bowker, Gordon, ed, ''Malcolm Lowry Remembered'' (Ariel: London, 1985) * Bradbrook, M.C., ''Malcolm Lowry: His Art and Early Life'' (CUP: Cambridge, 1974) * Cross, Richard K., ''Malcolm Lowry: a preface to his fiction'' (Athlone Press: London, 1980) * Foxcroft, Nigel H., ''The Kaleidoscopic Vision of Malcolm Lowry: Souls and Shamans'' (Lexington Books: Lanham, MD, 2019). * Hochschild, Adam, ''Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels'', pp. 265–73, "The Private Volcano of Malcolm Lowry," (Syracuse University Press: Syracuse, 1997) * McCarthy, Patrick A., ''Forests of Symbols: World, Text, and Self in Malcolm Lowry's Fiction'' (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1994). . Paperback edition with new preface, Univ. of Georgia Press, 2016. . * Miller, David, ''Malcolm Lowry and the voyage that never ends'' (Enitharmon Press: London, 1976) * Smith, Anne, ''The art of Malcolm Lowry'' (Vision: London, 1978) * Stevenson, Randall, ''The British Novel Since the Thirties'' (Batsford: London, 1986) * Vice, Sue, ''Malcolm Lowry eighty years on'' (St. Martins Press: New York, 1989) * Woolmer, J. Howard, ''Malcolm Lowry: a bibliography'' (Woolmer/Brotherson: Pennsylvania, 1983)

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lowry, Malcolm 1909 births 1957 deaths Alcohol-related deaths in England Barbiturates-related deaths Alumni of St Catharine's College, Cambridge Governor General's Award-winning fiction writers Modernist writers People educated at The Leys School 20th-century British male writers 20th-century British novelists 20th-century British poets British male poets British male novelists People from Birkenhead 20th-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian novelists 20th-century Canadian poets Canadian male poets Canadian male novelists British emigrants to Canada British expatriates in Mexico People from Chalvington with Ripe

Biography

Early years in England

United States, Mexico, Canada

Legacy

Writings

''The Voyage That Never Ends''

Works

Posthumous

References

Sources

Further reading

General

Biography

External links