Collection of English poetry by William Watson and Algernon Charles Swinburne

This material is held atArchifdy Prifysgol Bangor / Bangor University Archives

  • Reference
    • GB 222 BMSS/398
  • Dates of Creation
    • Early 20th century

Scope and Content

i. For the feast of Giordano Bruno

ii. Cyril Tourneur. Both of these pieces by Swinburne are in the poet's own script

iii. Letter from H.H. Asquith to William Watson, the poet, 1905

iv. Letter from William Watson to Dr Owen Pritchard, 1914

v. Sonnet "To a friend and physician" (Owen Pritchard, M.D.)

vi. Cyfieithiad gan John Morris-Jones o'r soned uchod

vii. Letter from Maureen Watson (wife of William Watson) to Dr. Owen Pritchard, 1924

viii. Poem by William Watson

Administrative / Biographical History

Algernon Charles Swinburne (London, April 5, 1837 - London, April 10, 1909) was an English poet, controversial in his own day. He invented the roundel form, wrote some novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. From 1903 to 1909 he was constantly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sir William Watson (2 August 1858 – 13 August 1935), was an English poet, popular in his time for the political content of his verse. He was born in Burley, in West Yorkshire.

He was very much on the traditionalist wing of English poetry. He was a prolific poet of the 1890s, and a contributor to The Yellow Book, without 'decadent' associations. He was also a defender of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as he dropped out of fashion. On Tennyson's death, Watson was a strong candidate for Poet Laureate but his earlier opposition to the Boer War had made him politically unsuitable and he was passed over for Alfred Austin.

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