Name Arthur John Role Novelist | Died June 9, 1930 | |
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Books Famous houses and litera, For Remembrance: Soldier P, The Booklover's London, For Remembrance Soldier P, Opening Shots: 1914‑Firs | ||
Arthur St John Adcock (17 January 1864 – 9 June 1930), was an English novelist and poet, known as A. St John Adcock or St John Adcock. He is remembered for his discovery of the then-unknown poet W. H. Davies.
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Life
Adcock was born in London. He was a Fleet Street journalist for half a century, as an assiduous freelance writer. He worked initially as a law office clerk, becoming full-time as a writer in 1893. He built up a literary career by unrelenting efforts in circulating his manuscripts, initially also working part-time as an assistant editor on a trade journal. He was a founder member in 1901 of Paul Henry's literary and performing club, with Robert Lynd, Frank Rutter and others.
The acting editor of The Bookman from 1908, Adcock, according to A. E. Waite who knew him, did all the work of the Bookman, nominally under its founder William Robertson Nicoll. In 1923 he became also its titular editor. As an influential critic, he has been classed with conservatives such as Hilaire Belloc, Edmund Gosse, Henry Newbolt, E. B. Osborn and Arthur Waugh.
Legacy
Adcock's papers are held by the Bodleian Library.
Works
Adcock is considered one of the "Cockney school novelists" (not the earlier Cockney School poets), a group influenced by Charles Dickens and including also Henry Nevinson, Edwin Pugh, and William Pett Ridge. East End Idylls (1897), about the London slums, began an early trilogy, and had an introduction by the Christian Socialist James Granville Adderley, a friend. It drew on Arthur Morrison.
Adcock published:
He was the last editor of The Odd Volume (1917), an annual that folded during World War I.
Family
Adcock married Marion Taylor in 1887, and they settled in Hampstead. Their daughter Marion St John Webb (died 2 May 1930) was also an author. Almey St. John Adcock was also a daughter.
The Bookman Treasury of Living Poets (4th edition 1931)
Edited by Adcock. The poets included (not all alive in 1931) were:
Lascelles Abercrombie - J. R. Ackerley - Arthur H. Adams - Arthur St. John Adcock - Richard Aldington - William Talbot Allison - Laurence Alma-Tadema - Reginald Arkell - Martin Armstrong - Henry Baerlein - Maurice Baring - May Bateman - Clifford Bax - Hilaire Belloc - Laurence Binyon - William Blane - Edmund Blunden - Gordon Bottomley - F. Victor Branford - Robert Bridges - Thomas Burke - Charles Kennett Burrow - May Byron - Sir Hall Caine - Joseph Campbell - Roy Campbell - William Canton - Bliss Carman - G. K. Chesterton - Wilfred Rowland Childe - Richard Church - Ethel Clifford - Helena Coleman - Padraic Colum - William Leonard Courtney - Zora Cross - Gerald H. Crow - Gerald Cumberland - Charles Dalmon - William Henry Davies - Edward Davison - C. A. Dawson-Scott - Walter de la Mare - C. J. Dennis - May Doney - Charles Montagu Doughty - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - John Drinkwater - Helen Parry Eden - T. S. Eliot - Vivian Locke Ellis - Godfrey Elton - Eleanor Farjeon - Hugh I'A. Fausset - John Ferguson - Alfred Hugh Fisher - F. S. Flint - Robin Flower - S. Gertrude Ford - Gilbert Frankau - John Freeman - Cecil French - V. Helen Friedlaender - Rose Fyleman - Norman Gale - John Galsworthy - Douglas Garman - Leon Gellert - Wilfrid Wilson Gibson - Mary Gilmore - Hibbart Gilson - Louis Golding - Douglas Goldring - Eva Gore-Booth - Sir Edmund Gosse - Gerald Gould - Alfred Perceval Graves - Robert Graves - Rosaleen Graves - Gladys Laurence Groom - Joan Guthrie-Smith - Stephen Gwynn - Katherine Hale - Thomas Hardy - F. W. Harvey - Alfred Hayes - Ralph Hodgson - Norah Mary Holland - Alfred Edward Housman - Laurence Housman - Aldous Huxley - Violet Jacob - James Joyce - Sheila Kaye-Smith - Frank Kendon - Rudyard Kipling - Vernon Knowles - Edmund George Valpy Knox - D. H. Lawrence - Nina Frances Layard - Richard Le Gallienne - Rudolph Chambers Lehmann - Shane Leslie - W. M. Letts - Sylvia Lynd - Sidney Royse Lysaght - Rose Macaulay - Ronald Campbell Macfie - Patrick MacGill - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay - James Allan Mackereth - Rachel Swete Macnamara - John Masefield - Theodore Maynard - Phyllis Mégroz - R. L. Mégroz - Charlotte Mew - Susan Miles - Harold Monro - E. Hamilton Moore - T. Sturge Moore - Thomas Moult - Neil Munro - Charles Murray - John Middleton Murry - Sarojini Naidu - Sir Henry Newbolt - Robert Nichols - Wallace Bertram Nichols - Frederick Niven - Alfred Noyes - Will H. Ogilvie - Carola Oman - Moira O'Neill - Hermon Ould - Barry Pain - Herbert E. Palmer - Sir Gilbert Parker - Andrew Barton Paterson - Eden Phillpotts - William Plomer - Max Plowman - John Presland - Peter Quennell - Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch - Herbert Read - Ernest Rhys - Edgell Rickword - Cecil Roberts - Charles George Douglas Roberts - Dorothy Roberts - Richard Ellis Roberts - Eric Sutherland Robertson - George William Russell - Arthur K. Sabin - Lady Margaret Sackville - V. Sackville-West - Arthur L. Salmon - Ruth Manning-Sanders - Siegfried Sassoon - Henry Savage - Duncan Campbell Scott - Frederick George Scott - Sir Owen Seaman - Robert W. Service - William Kean Seymour - Edward Shanks - Alfred Tresidder Sheppard - Edward Shillito - Horace Shipp - Fredegond Shove - May Sinclair - Edith Sitwell - Osbert Sitwell - Sacheverell Sitwell - Francis Carey Slater - C. Fox Smith - Stephen Southwold - J. C. Squire - Robert J. C. Stead - W. Force Stead - James Stephens - Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer - Leonard Strong - Muriel Stuart - G. A. Studdert-Kennedy - Arthur Symons - Rabindranath Tagore - Rachel Annand Taylor - Gilbert Thomas - Edward Thompson - E. Temple Thurston - W. R. Titterton - W. J. Turner - Katharine Tynan - Alberta Vickridge - Sherard Vines - E. H. Visiak - Arthur Edward Waite - C. Henry Warren - Sir William Watson - Alec Waugh - Marion St. John Webb - Mary Webb - Mary Morison Webster - Anna Wickham - Charles Williams - Iolo Aneurin Williams - Humbert Wolfe - Margaret L. Woods - David McKee Wright - W. B. Yeats - Francis Brett Young - Geoffrey Winthrop Young - Ruth Young