Alfred Noyes
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Alfred Noyes (September 16, 1880 – June 28, 1958)[1] was an English poet, best known for his ballads The Highwayman (1906) and The Barrel Organ.
Born in Wolverhampton, England, he was the son of Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes. Noyes attended Exeter College, Oxford, leaving before he had earned a degree.
At 21 years of age, he published his first collection of poems, The Loom Years. From 1903 to 1908, Noyes published five volumes of poetry books, including The Forest of Wild Thyme and The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems.
In 1907, he married Garnett Daniels. He was given the opportunity to teach English literature at Princeton University, where he taught from 1914 until 1923. Noyes' wife died in 1926, resulting in his conversion to Roman Catholicism. He wrote about his conversion in The Unknown God, published in 1934.
Noyes later married Mary Angela Mayne Weld-Blundell, from an old recusant Catholic family from Ince Blundell in Lancashire. They settled at Lisle Combe, near Ventnor on the Isle of Wight and had three children: Hugh, Veronica, and Margaret. His younger daughter married Michael Nolan (later Lord Nolan) in 1953.
He later started dictating his work as a result of increasing blindness. In 1953, his autobiography, Two Worlds for Memory, was published.
Noyes died at the age of 77 and was buried on the Isle of Wight. He authored around sixty books, including poetry volumes, novels, and short stories.
"Alfred Noyes was born to Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes on the 16th of September in the year 1880 in the town of Wolverhamton, England. His father became a teacher and taught Latin and Greek and he taught in Aberystwyth, Wales. In 1898, Alfred attended Exeter College in Oxford. Though he failed to earn a degree, the young poet published his first collection of poetry, The Loom of Years, in 1902.
During the next five years, Noyes published five additional volumes of poetry, including Poems (1904). One of Noyes' most ambitious works, Drake: An English Epic, was first published in 1906. The twelve-book, two hundred page epic is thought to be too long by some critics, but nonetheless, an impressive example of Noyes' talent and creativity. Arguably Noyes' most beloved poem, The Highwayman, was published in Forty singing seamen and other poems in 1907.
He married his first wife, Garnett Daniels, in 1907 and spent time between the United States and Great Britain. Noyes' popularity continued to increase as he published more volumes of poetry. By 1914, he was serving as Professor of Modern English Literature at Princeton University.
After the death of his wife in 1926, Noyes converted to Roman Catholicism and married his second wife, Mary Angela Mayne Weld-Blundell. In 1929, the family moved to Lisle Combe, St Lawrence, Isle of Wight where Noyes continued to write essays and poems, culminating in the collection, Orchard's Bay (1939).
Noyes spent much of the Second World War in North America, returning to Great Britain in 1949. Two Worlds For Memory, in which he described his life between America and Great Britain, was published in 1953. He published his last volume of poems in 1956, A Letter to Lucian, and his last book in 1957, The Accusing Ghost, or Justice for Casement.
On 25 June 1958, Alfred Noyes died on the Isle of Wight and was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Freshwater."
- taken from http://litterature.historique.net/noyes.html
[edit] Notes
- ^ [1] According to some sources, he died on June 25, but others, including Encyclopædia Britannica give the date as June 28
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