Gascoyne, David ___ 1916-2001 ___ British ___ poet

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Gascoyne was born at Harrow, north of London, and educated at Salisbury Cathedral School and Regent Street Polytechnic, London, where he met George Barker. When only 16, his first collection of poetry was published. The following year, his novel 'Opening Day' was also published. Further poetry collections followed, and these helped establish him as one of most original voices of the 1930s. When still only 21, he wrote 'A Short Survey of Surrealism' which was published with a cover by Max Ernst. Subsequently, he was involved in organising the London International Surrealist Exhibition with Roland Penrose and Herbert Read. He involved himself in the Spanish Civil War, and lived in France for long periods. He became increasingly well known, not only as a poet but as a translator of French surrealist literature, publishing widely in books and magazines. After the war, Gascoyne again lived in France, and continued writing and publishing poems, although without the fervour of previous years. Suffering from depression, he returned to England, and to his parents' house on the Isle of Wight. The death of his father caused further psychological difficulties. In 1975, he married Judy Lewis and recovered some of his writing ability. It was then that he published his journals from the 1930s, which revealed friendships with many literary names of the period, not least Norman Cameron, Anäis Nin and Henry Miller.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - The poet’s destiny

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1936-1939 ___ literary art people self love/sex philosophy

WEB TEXT LINKS
a few extracts
lots of citations
 

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Yale University Libraries: Beinecke Library

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Journal 1936-1937
Journal 1937-1939
 

May 2005, June 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.