John Collings Squire

1884–1958 · 1 work on Laurel, 2,271 lines, all free to read

A portrait of John Collings Squire

Sir John Collings Squire (2 April 1884 – 20 December 1958) was an English writer, most notable as editor of the London Mercury, a major literary magazine in the interwar period. He antagonised several eminent authors, but attracted a coterie that was dubbed the Squirearchy. He was also a poet and historian, who captained a famous literary cricket-team called the Invalids.

Born in Plymouth, he was educated at Blundell's School and St. John's College, Cambridge. He was one of those published in the Georgian poetry collections of Edward Marsh. His own Selections from Modern Poets anthology series, launched in 1921, became definitive of the conservative style of Georgian poetry.

He began reviewing for The New Age; through his wife he had met Alfred Orage. His literary reputation was first made by a flair for parody, in a column Imaginary Speeches in The New Age from 1909.

Biography adapted from the Wikipedia article “J. C. Squire”, CC BY-SA. Read it there.

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