Harold Monro

Harold Edward Monro (14 March 1879 – 16 March 1932) was a British poet, the proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London which helped many famous poets bring their work before the public.

Monro was born in Brussels, but his parents were Scottish. He was educated at Radley and at Caius College, Cambridge.^[1] His first collection of poetry was published in 1906. He edited a poetry magazine, The Poetry Review, which was to be very influential. In 1912, he founded the Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury, London, publishing new collections at his own expense and rarely making a profit, as well as providing a welcoming environment for readers and poets alike. Several poets, including Wilfred Owen, actually lodged in the rooms above the bookshop. Monro was also closely involved with Edward Marsh in the publication of the Georgian Poetry series, which the Poetry Bookshop published.

After the War, Monro wrote his somewhat trenchant overview Some Contemporary Poets (1920).^[2] (though this was not published by the Poetry Bookshop).

Although homosexual, he married before World War I, but he and his wife separated and were divorced in 1916. In 1917, he was called up for military service, a very unhappy experience for him. His health soon gave way, and he returned to run the Poetry Bookshop in 1919. He was not a mainstream war poet, but did occasionally write about the subject. In 1920, he married his long-standing assistant, Alida Klementaski. Their relationship seems to have been an intellectual rather than a physical one. Monro continued to suffer from alcoholism, which contributed to his early death.

Poets in Twentieth Century Poetry, an Anthology chosen by Harold Monro, 1933 edition

Lascelles Abercrombie - Richard Aldington - John Alford - A. C. Benson - Laurence Binyon - Edmund Blunden - W. S. Blunt - Gordon Bottomley - Robert Bridges - Rupert Brooke - Samuel "Erewhon" Butler - Roy Campbell - G. K. Chesterton - Richard Church - Padraic Colum - A. E. Coppard - Frances Cornford - John Davidson - W. H. Davies - Jeffery Day - Walter de la Mare - Lord Alfred Douglas - John Drinkwater - Helen Parry Eden - T. S. Eliot - Vivian Locke Ellis - Michael Field - J. E. Flecker - F. S. Flint - John Freeman - Stella Gibbons - Wilfrid Gibson - Robert Graves - Thomas Hardy - H. D. - Philip Henderson - Maurice Hewlett - Ralph Hodgson - Gerard Manley Hopkins - A. E. Housman - Ford Madox Hueffer - T. E. Hulme - Aldous Huxley - James Joyce - Rudyard Kipling - D. H. Lawrence - Cecil Day-Lewis - John Masefield - R. A. K. Mason - Charlotte Mew - Alice Meynell - Viola Meynell - Harold Monro - T. Sturge Moore - Edwin Muir - Henry Newbolt - Robert Nichols - Alfred Noyes - Wilfred Owen - J. D. C. Pellow - H. D. C. Pepler - Eden Phillpotts - Ezra Pound - Peter Quennell - Herbert Read - Isaac Rosenberg - Siegfried Sassoon - Geoffrey Scott - Edward Shanks - Fredegond Shove - Edith Sitwell - Osbert Sitwell - Sacheverell Sitwell - Stephen Spender - J. C. Squire - James Stephens - Edward Thomas - W. J. Turner - Sylvia Townsend Warner - Max Weber - Anna Wickham - Humbert Wolfe - William Butler Yeats

References

Further reading

• Grant, Joy (1967) Harold Monro and the Poetry Bookshop University of California Press

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Harold Monro

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Harold Monro