Robert Bridges: A Biography

Despite holding the Laureateship from 1913 to his death in 1930, Robert Bridges is better known today as the editor and champion of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins than as a poet in his own right. In this, the first full-length biography, Catherine Phillips seeks to redress the balance by focusing on Bridges's long and full life, and on his achievements as a poet and literary commentator. Interested throughout his life in orthography and etymology, he co-founded the Society for Pure English in 1913, while his fascination with science, philosophy, music, and literature led to friendships with Roger Fry, W.B. Yeats, Hopkins, and George Santayana. Drawing on previously unpublished material and family archives, this is a revealing study of a complex and troubled man and the times in which he lived.