author
Robert Nichols
1893–1944
A vivid voice from the First World War, this English poet and playwright turned his battlefield experience into writing remembered for its energy and feeling. His work helped make him one of the notable literary witnesses of his generation.
1 Audiobook
Ardours and Endurances; Also, A Faun's Holiday & Poems and Phantasies
by Robert Nichols
About the author
Born on September 6, 1893, Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols was an English writer best known as a First World War poet, though he also wrote plays. He studied at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford, and left university when war broke out to serve as an officer in the Royal Field Artillery.
Nichols fought on the Western Front, and his experiences in the war shaped much of the writing that first brought him attention. Poetry Foundation notes that illness limited his time in France, but his war poems, including the often-mentioned "The Assault," earned him a strong reputation in the years after the conflict.
He died on December 17, 1944. Today, he is remembered mainly for poetry that tried to capture both the shock of battle and the intensity of inner experience, as well as for a wider literary career that included drama and prose.