Lascelles Abercrombie

Lascelles Abercrombie (9 January 1881 – 27 October 1938) His mother, born Sarah Ann Heron, was a broad minded woman and had a sense of humour. His father, William Abercrombie, was a stock broker by profession and had the habit of reading books of eminent writers. Lascelles inherited his father's habit: "Nous" was the nickname used by his family members. He was the brother of the architect and town planner Patrick Abercrombie.

Abercrombie was educated at Malvern College, and at Owens College, Manchester. In 1929 he moved on to the University of London, and in 1935 to the prestigious Goldsmiths' Readership at the University of Oxford, He wrote a series of works on the nature of poetry, including The Idea of Great Poetry (1925) and Romanticism (1926). He published several volumes of original verse, largely metaphysical poems in dramatic form, and a number of verse plays. Abercrombie also contributed to Georgian Poetry and several of his verse plays appeared in New Numbers (1914). His poems and plays were collected in 'The Poems of Lascelles Abercrombie' (1930).

Lascelles Abercrombie suffered in his later years from serious diabetes, and died in London in 1938, aged 57.

Family In 1909 Abercrombie married Catherine Gwatkin (1881–1968) of Grange-over-Sands, daughter of the surgeon Owen Gwatkin, surgeon. They had a daughter and three sons. Two of the sons achieved prominence, David Abercrombie as a phonetician and Michael Abercrombie as a cell biologist. The latter's son Nicholas Abercrombie is a sociologist. A grandson, Jeffrey Cooper, produced a bibliography of his grandfather, with notes, while a great-grandson is author Joe Abercrombie.

Arthur Ransome dedicated his second children's adventure novel Swallowdale to Lascelles's daughter Elizabeth. He was a close friend of her father, Lascelles, who was often his walking/hiking companion during the 1900/1910s. He had previously dedicated his 1909 anthology, The Book of Friendship to Lascelles Abercrombie.

Poetry and plays Abercrombie's poetry consists very largely of long poems in blank verse, mainly in dramatic form. They treat the extremes of imagined rather than actual experience, from ecstasy to anguish and malice, with little in between, in verse full of sharp, gem-like imagery and generally rugged in sound and metre. Admired for a time by good judges such as Charles Williams, Oliver Elton and Una Ellis-Fermor, and respected by his fellow 'Georgian' poets, it was never popular, and by the 1930s no longer corresponded to what readers sought in modern verse.

His 'Four Short Plays' of 1922 have fared better and still receive some attention, particularly 'The Staircase', because of their more realistic characters and setting. They compare favourably to the poetic plays of the other Georgian poets, such as John Drinkwater and John Masefield.

Archives A collection of literary and other manuscripts relating to Abercrombie is held by Special Collections in the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds. The collection contains drafts of many of Abercrombie's own publications and literary material; lecture notes, including those of his own lectures and some notes taken from the lectures of others, and a printed order of service for his Memorial Service in 1938.

Special Collections in the Brotherton Library also holds correspondence relating to Lascelles Abercrombie and his family. Comprising 105 letters, the collection contains letters of condolence to Catherine and Ralph Abercrombie on the death of Lascelles, as well as Abercrombie family letters from various correspondents, chiefly to Ralph Abercrombie.

Works Title Year DescriptionInterludes and Poems 1908 PlayAn Essay Towards a Theory of Art 1922