Cecil Day-Lewis, 1904-1972. British author
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Finding-Aid for the Day-Lewis Papers [00178]Collection Description
Letters, 1960
2 items
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Born in Ireland but educated at Wadham College, Oxford, Cecil Day Lewis became associated with a group of leftist poets led by W. H. Auden. He was professor of poetry at Oxford from 1951 to 1956. Included among his volumes of poetry are Collected Poems 1929–1933 (1935), Overtures to Death (1938), Short Is the Time (1945), Collected Poems (1954), Pegasus and Other Poems (1957), and The Whispering Roots and Other Poems (1970). A member of the Communist party from 1935 to 1938, his early poetry is marked by didacticism and a preoccupation with social themes. In his later work, however, the tone became more personal and metaphysical. Besides poetry, C. Day Lewis is noted for the collection of essays A Hope for Poetry (1934); for a verse translation of Vergil's Aeneid (1952); and for detective stories written under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake. From 1967 to 1972 he was poet laureate of Great Britain. He is also the father of actor Daniel Day Lewis.
Both letters are from January 19060 and are addressed to Alan Hancox. In them, Lewis attempts to deal Hancox two mss..
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Lewis, Cecil Day, 1904-1972. British author