W H Davies Bernard Shaw Popular Books

W H Davies Bernard Shaw Biography & Facts

William Henry Davies (3 July 1871 – 26 September 1940) was a Welsh poet and writer, who spent much of his life as a tramp or hobo in the United Kingdom and the United States, yet became one of the most popular poets of his time. His themes included observations on life's hardships, the ways the human condition is reflected in nature, his tramping adventures and the characters he met. His work has been classed as Georgian, though it is not typical of that class of work in theme or style. Life and career Early life The son of an iron moulder, Davies was born at 6 Portland Street in the Pillgwenlly district of Newport, Monmouthshire, a busy port. He had an older brother, Francis Gomer Boase, born with part of his skull displaced, who Davies' biographer describes as "simple and peculiar". In 1874 a sister, Matilda, was born. In November 1874, William was aged three when his father died. The next year his mother, Mary Anne Davies, remarried as Mrs Joseph Hill. She agreed that care of the three children should pass to their paternal grandparents, Francis and Lydia Davies, who ran the nearby Church House Inn at 14 Portland Street. His grandfather Francis Boase Davies, originally from Cornwall, had been a sea captain. Davies was related to the British actor Sir Henry Irving, known as Cousin Brodribb to the family. He later recalled his grandmother speaking of Irving as "the cousin who brought disgrace on us." According to a neighbour's memories, she wore "pretty little caps, with bebe ribbon, tiny roses and puce trimmings." Osbert Sitwell, introducing the 1943 Collected Poems of W. H. Davies, recalled Davies telling him that along with his grandparents and himself, his home held "an imbecile brother, a sister... a maidservant, a dog, a cat, a parrot, a dove and a canary bird." Sitwell also recounts how Davies's grandmother, a Baptist, was "of a more austere and religious turn of mind than her husband." In 1879 the family moved to Raglan Street, Newport, then to Upper Lewis Street, where William attended Temple School. In 1883 he moved to Alexandra Road School and the following year was arrested, as one of five schoolmates charged with stealing handbags. He was given twelve strokes of the birch. In 1885 Davies wrote his first poem entitled "Death." In Poet's Pilgrimage (1918) Davies recalls that, at the age of 14, he was left with orders to sit with his dying grandfather. He missed the final moments of his grandfather's life as he was too engrossed in reading "a very interesting book of wild adventure." Delinquent to "supertramp" After school, Davies worked as an ironmonger. In November 1886 his grandmother signed Davies up for a five-year apprenticeship to a local picture-frame maker. Davies never enjoyed the craft. He left Newport, took casual work and began his travels. The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp (1908) covers his American life in 1893–1899, including adventures and characters from his travels as a drifter. During the period, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean at least seven times on cattle ships. He travelled through many states doing seasonal work. Davies took advantage of the corrupt system of "boodle" to pass the winter in Michigan by agreeing to be locked in a series of jails. Here with his fellow tramps Davies enjoyed relative comfort in "card-playing, singing, smoking, reading, relating experiences, and occasionally taking exercise or going out for a walk." At one point on his way to Memphis, Tennessee, he lay alone in a swamp for three days and nights suffering from malaria. The turning point in Davies's life came after a week of rambling in London. He spotted a newspaper story about the riches to be made in the Klondike and set off to make his fortune in Canada. Attempting with a fellow tramp, Three-fingered Jack, to jump a freight train at Renfrew, Ontario on 20 March 1899, he lost his footing and his right foot was crushed under the wheels of the train. The leg was amputated below the knee and he wore a pegleg thereafter. Davies' biographers agree the accident was crucial, although Davies played down the story. Moult begins his biography with the incident, and his biographer Richard J. Stonesifer suggested this event, more than any other, led Davies to become a professional poet. Davies writes, "I bore this accident with an outward fortitude that was far from the true state of my feelings. Thinking of my present helplessness caused me many a bitter moment, but I managed to impress all comers with a false indifference.... I was soon home again, away less than four months; but all the wildness was taken out of me, and my adventures after this were not of my seeking, but the result of circumstances." Davies took an ambivalent view of his disability. In his poem "The Fog", published in the 1913 Foliage, a blind man leads the poet through the fog, showing the reader how someone impaired in one domain may have a big advantage in another. Poet Davies returned to Britain, to a rough life largely in London shelters and doss-houses, including a Salvation Army hostel in Southwark known as "The Ark", which he grew to despise. Fearing the reaction of his fellow tramps to his writings, Davies would pretend to sleep, while composing his poems in his head, for later transcription in private. At one point, he borrowed money to print some, which he attempted to sell door-to-door. The effort was not successful and Davies burned all of the printed sheets. Davies self-published his first slim book of poetry, The Soul's Destroyer, in 1905, again by means of his savings. It proved to be the beginning of success and a growing reputation. To publish it, Davies forwent his allowance to live as a tramp for six months (with the first draft of the book hidden in his pocket), just to secure a loan of funds from his inheritance. After it was published, the volume was ignored. He resorted to posting individual copies by hand to prospective wealthy customers chosen from the pages of Who's Who, asking them to send the price of the book, a half crown, in return. He sold 60 of the 200 copies printed. One of the copies went to Arthur St John Adcock, then a journalist with the Daily Mail. On reading the book, he later wrote in his essay "Gods of Modern Grub Street", Adcock said he "recognised there were crudities and doggerel in it, there was also in it some of the freshest and most magical poetry to be found in modern books." He sent the price of the book, then asked Davies to meet him. Adcock is seen as "the man who discovered Davies." The first trade edition of The Soul's Destroyer was published by Alston Rivers in 1907. A second edition followed in 1908 and a third in 1910. A 1906 edition, by Fifield, was advertised but has not been verified. Rural life in Kent On 12 October 1905 Davies met Edward Thomas, then literary critic for the Daily Chronicle in London, who did more to help him than anyone else. Thomas rented for Davies the tiny two-roomed Stidulph's Cottage in Egg Pie Lane.... Discover the W H Davies Bernard Shaw popular books. Find the top 100 most popular W H Davies Bernard Shaw books.