English man of letters, known under the pseudonym of “Q,” born in Cornwall on the 21st of November 1863. He was educated at Newton Abbot College, at Clifton College, and Trinity College, Oxford. After taking his degree in 1886 he was for a short time classical lecturer at Trinity. While he was at Oxford he published (1887) his Dead Man’s Rock (a romance in the vein of Stevenson’s Treasure Island), and he followed this up with Troy Town (1888) and The Splendid Spur (1889). After some journalistic experience in London, mainly as a contributor to the Speaker, in 1891 he settled at Fowey in Cornwall. His later novels include The Blue Pavilions (1891), The Ship of Stars (1899), Hetty Wesley (1903), The Adventures of Harry Revel (1903), Fort Amity (1904), The Shining Ferry (1905), Sir John Constantine (1906). He published in 1896 a series of critical articles, Adventures in Criticism, and in 1898 he completed R. L. Stevenson’s unfinished novel, St. Ives. From his Oxford days he was known as a writer of excellent verse. With the exception of the parodies entitled Green Bays (1893), his poetical work is contained in Poems and Ballads (1896). In 1895 he published a delightful anthology from the 16th- and 17th-century English lyrists, The Golden Pomp, followed in 1900 by an equally successful Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900 (1900). In Cornwall he was an active worker in politics for the Liberal party. He was knighted in 1910. He published subsequently to 1910 The Vigil of Venus and other poems and an anthology, The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (1912), as well as books On the Art of Writing (1916), and On the Art of Reading (1920); a memoir of Arthur John Butler (1917); a volume of Shakespearean studies in 1918; Hocken and Hunken, a new Tale of Troy (1912); and various collections of short stories, including Hicky-Nan, Reservist (1915). See also “When the Sap Rose: A Fantasia,” “The Paupers,” The Oxford Book of Ballads, The Sleeping Beauty and other Fairy Tales, and The Delectable Duchy. (See authored article: Thomas Edward Brown.)
