British poet, born at Lewisham on the 5th of November 1884, the son of the Rev. W. H. Flecker, D.D., afterwards headmaster of Dean Close school at Cheltenham. He was educated at Uppingham and Trinity College, Oxford, proceeding later to Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied oriental languages for two years before entering the consular service. He was sent to Constantinople in 1910 and to Beyrout in 1911. There he married a Greek lady. But his health failed early and he died at Davos Platz, Switzerland, on the 3rd of January 1915. His poetic output, though small, was choice, showing much affinity with the French Parnassien school, as well as with Swinburne and Francis Thompson. During his lifetime he published four small volumes of poetry; one more and two privately printed volumes appeared after his death, and his Collected Poems, with an introduction by J. C. Squire, were published in 1916. He also left two unpublished dramas, Hassan and Don Juan. A short satire, The Last Generation (1908), and a novel, The King of Alsander (1914), were his only important prose works. See also “The Old Ships,” “Rioupéroux” and “War Song of the Saracens.”
