Clifford Bax

Born in London on July 13, 1886, Clifford Bax became known as a remarkably wide-ranging writer: a playwright, journalist, critic, editor, poet, lyricist, hymn writer, and translator. He came from a notably artistic family—his brother was the composer Arnold Bax, who set some of his words to music.

Bax is especially remembered for his plays and for the way he helped shape literary culture beyond his own books. His interests stretched across theater, literature, and music, and that breadth gave his writing an easy, conversational intelligence rather than a narrowly academic feel.

He died on November 18, 1962. Today he stands as one of those quietly influential British authors whose career shows just how fluid the boundaries between stage writing, criticism, and literary journalism could be in his era.