John Stewart Collis (1900-1984) was a British author.
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The son of an Irish solicitor, John Stewart Collis was educated at Rugby and Oxford. A writer of biographies and other works, his first book on George Bernard Shaw, was published in 1925, followed by biographies of Havelock Ellis, Strindberg, Tolstoy, the Carlyles and Christopher Columbus. He is remembered largely for While Following the Plough (1946) and Down to Earth (1947: as one volume, The Worm Forgives the Plough, 1973), works inspired by the years he spent working as a farm labourer in Dorset and Sussex during the Second World War. His autobiography Bound upon a Course brought him belated recognition as a pioneer in the ecological movement, who wrote with imagination and authenticity of rural life.[1]
A 2009 edition of The Worm Forgives the Plough was issued by Vintage Classics.[2] The writer and doctor Robert Collis was his twin and Maurice Collis, writer and biographer, was his elder brother.[3]