author
Sir John Collings Squire
1884–1958
Best known for shaping the influential literary magazine London Mercury, this English writer moved easily between poetry, criticism, journalism, and history. He was a lively and sometimes controversial figure in British literary life between the wars.
4 Audiobooks
The Three Hills, and Other Poems
by Sir John Collings Squire, Charles Baudelaire
Poems - Second Series
by Sir John Collings Squire
Poems - First Series
by Sir John Collings Squire
Tricks of the trade
by Sir John Collings Squire
About the author
Born in Plymouth in 1884, Sir John Collings Squire studied history at St John’s College, Cambridge, and began his career in journalism before becoming literary editor of the New Statesman. He wrote poetry as well as essays, criticism, and history, building a reputation for clarity, wit, and strong opinions.
Squire is most closely linked with London Mercury, the major literary magazine he founded and edited after the First World War. Through it, he became an influential voice in English letters, encouraging some writers while sharply disagreeing with others. His circle was prominent enough to earn the nickname “the Squirearchy,” a sign of both his influence and the arguments he could stir up.
Alongside his editorial work, he published poems, anthologies, and prose, and was also known for his love of cricket, even captaining a literary team called the Invalids. He died in 1958, remembered as a central and colorful figure in the literary culture of interwar Britain.