Jack Lindsay

For the footballer, see Jack Lindsay (footballer).

Robert Leeson Jack Lindsay (20 October 1900 - 1990) was an Australian-born writer, who from 1926 lived in the United Kingdom, initially in Essex. He was born in Melbourne, but spent his formative years in Brisbane. He was the eldest son of Norman Lindsay.

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Early life

He was educated at Brisbane Grammar School and the University of Queensland, from which he graduated with first class honours in Greek and Latin. In the 1920s he contributed stories and poems to the Bulletin, as well as editing the literary magazines Vision (with his father Norman Lindsay) and London Aphrodite. He founded, with P. R. Stephensen and John Kirtley, the Fanfrolico Press for fine publishing, initially in North Sydney. Jack Lindsay left Australia in 1926, never to return. When the University of Queensland Press tried to persuade him to come to Australia for the launch of The Blood Vote in 1985, he declined.

In the UK

In the 1930s the Fanfrolico Press ceased as a business. Lindsay moved to the left politically, writing for Left Review and joining the Communist Party of Great Britain at the end of the decade, becoming an activist. He started writing novels while living in Cornwall. His works were published in the USSR under the name Richard Preston. He collaborated, amongst others, with Edgell Rickword.

During World War II, he served in the British Army initially in the Royal Signal Corps. From 1943 he worked for the War Office on theatrical scripts. After the war he lived in Castle Hedingham.

Works

Fanfrolico Press books, as translator, author or editor

To 1929

1930-1939

1940-1949

1950-1959

1960-1969

1970-1979

1980-1991

References

New Lyrical Ballads (1945)

Edited by Lindsay, Honor Arundel and Maurice Carpenter. Poets included were:

Dai Alexander - Honor Arundel - John Atkins - Maurice Carpenter - Herbert Corby - Leslie Daiken - Idris Davies - Tom Farnol - Alun Lewis - Jack Lindsay - John Manifold - Geoffrey Matthews - David Martin - Frances Mayo - Hubert Nicholson - Harold W. Owen - Paul Potts - John Pudney - Arnold Rattenbury - M. Richardson - Joyce Rowe - Francis Scarfe - John Singe - Randall Swingler - Mike Whittock