Charles Brasch

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Charles Orwell Brasch (27 July 1909 – 20 May 1973) was a New Zealand poet, literary editor and arts patron. He was the founding editor of the literary journal Landfall.

Brasch was born in Dunedin, the son of lawyer Hyam Brasch (who later changed his name to Henry Brash) and Helene Fels, a member of the prominent Hallenstein family of merchants. He began writing poetry at Waitaki Boys' High School and entered St John's College, Oxford, in 1927 where he gained an 'ignominious third' in Modern History (to his father's disappointment[1]). His contemporaries at Oxford included W. H. Auden and Cecil Day-Lewis.

Brasch spent some time working in and studying the field of archaeology before returning to Dunedin in 1931. With private means, he travelled widely in Europe, Asia and the Americas during the 1930s. He spent the Second World War in Britain as a firewatcher and intelligence officer having been exempted from active service on medical grounds.

Landfall

Brasch returned to New Zealand in 1946, settling in Dunedin. He had held the ambition of publishing 'a substantial literary journal' in New Zealand for at least 15 years,[1] and in 1947 he founded Landfall, remaining its editor for the next 20 years.[2]

In later life he was a substantial patron of arts and letters, and was involved in the establishment of the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. He was also a patron and contributor to the Otago Museum; in this he followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, Willi Fels.

He died of cancer in 1973.

Bibliography

Poetry

Books and one broadsheet:

  • 1939: The Land and the People, and Other Poems, Christchurch: Caxton Press, New Zealand[3]
  • Charles Brash in Egypt,(SteeleRoberts Ltd, 2007)

Other

  • 1946: The Quest: Words for a Mime Play, London: The Compass Players[3]
  • 1966: Present Company: Reflections on the Arts, Auckland: Blackwood and Janet Paul for the Auckland Gallery Associates[3]
  • 1973: Such Separate Creatures: Stories, Christchurch: Caxton Press[3]
  • 1973: Hallensteins: the First Century, 1873-1973, Dunedin : Hallenstein Bros., 1973. (with C.R. Nicholson)[3]
  • 1981: The Universal Dance: a Selection from the Critical Prose Writings of Charles Brasch, Dunedin: University of Otago Press[3]

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.dnzb.org.nz/DNZB/alt_essayBody.asp?essayID=5B40
  2. ↑ Dance of the Peacocks: New Zealanders in exile in the time of Hitler and Mao Tse Tung (Vintage 2003) James McNeish
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Web page titled "Charles Brasch: New Zealand Literature File" at the University of Auckland Library website, accessed April 26, 1980: Indirections: a Memoir, 1909-1947, Wellington ; New York: Oxford University Press
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