Harold monro biography

Harold Edward Monro was a British poet who was probably most famous for his London Poetry Bookshop fin Bloomsbury. It was set up in 1912 for the benefit of new poets struggling to achieve recognition and for established ones to meet and exchange views. He also founded the highly influential magazine The Poetry Review and his own first collection of poems was published in 1906. He was a contemporary of famous World War One poet Wilfred Owen but never achieved the same recognition, preferring instead to help others get their work published.

Monro was born in March 1879, in Brussels, into comfortable circumstances. His father was a civil engineer who unfortunately died when Harold was only nine years old. It is not clear when the family moved to London but Harold was sent first to the prestigious Radley School and then Caius College, Cambridge. In 1903 he married, in Ireland, but it was to be a short-lived affair. The couple had a child but separated after five years. It was surprising that Monro had married at all, having homosexual tendencies. Incredibly he married for a second time in 1920 but it is said that this was very much a marriage of intellectuals with no apparent physical attributes. They worked together in the Poetry Bookshop and his new wife, Alida, had a great influence on Harold’s poetry.

Towards the end of the war Harold experienced a short period of military service but poor health curtailed that. He was a confirmed alcoholic and it seems that this was a contributory factor in his early death. He managed to write poems on the subject of the war without ever being as prolific or well regarded as the likes of Owen and Rupert Brooke. He produced a powerful quartet of poems called Youth in Arms which included a poem dedicated to his dear friend Basil Watt, a man who was to die at the Battle of Loos. Here is Lament in 1915:

Monro’s intention when writing poetry was to bridge the apparent gap between modernist poets and those of the Georgian pe

English poet, critic and bookseller

Harold Edward Monro (14 March 1879 – 16 March 1932) was an English poet born in Brussels, Belgium. As the proprietor of the Poetry Bookshop in London, he helped many poets to bring their work before the public.

Life and career

Monro was born at 137 Chaussée de Charleroi, Saint-Gilles/St Gillis, Brussels, on 14 March 1879, as the youngest of three surviving children of Edward William Monro (1848–1889), civil engineer, and his wife and first cousin, Arabel Sophia (1849–1926), daughter of Peter John Margary, also a civil engineer. Monro's father was born at Marylebone and died aged 41 when Monro was only nine years old. The Monro family was well established in Bloomsbury. His paternal grandfather, Dr Henry Munro FRCP MD, was a surgeon, born at Gower St, Bloomsbury, in 1817.

Monro was educated at Radley College and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His first collection of poetry was published in 1906. He also edited a poetry magazine, The Poetry Review, which became influential. In 1913, he founded the Poetry Bookshop at 35 Devonshire Street in Bloomsbury, where he published new collections at his own expense and sometimes made a profit, while providing a welcoming environment for readers and poets. Several poets, including Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, lodged in the rooms above the shop. Monro and the Poetry Bookshop were also involved with Edward Marsh in publishing the Georgian Poetry series.

Monro also founded and edited Poetry and Drama. Between 1910 and 1914, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who had established Italian Futurism with the publication of the first Futurist manifesto in 1909, gave readings and lectures in London with a view to establishing an English Futurism. Initially, he had an ally in Monro, who devoted the September 1913 issue of Poetry and Drama to Futurism, praising Marinetti in a l

Harold Monro was a Belgium-born English poet.  Although he wrote poems about the First World War, and particularly about men that he knew involved in it, he could not be described as a “war poet” as such.  Besides writing his own work he opened the Poetry Bookshop in London, in 1913, and, over the next twenty years, this became an establishment that brought many up and coming poets to the attention of the reading public.

He was born Harold Edward Monro on the 14 March 1879 in the Belgian capital Brussels.  His father Edward, born in London, died when Harold was only nine years old and many believe that this event influenced his future writing career.  He had a comfortable upbringing and was sent to Radley College for his early education before going on to Caius College, Cambridge.  At the age of 27 he had his first collection of poetry published and, by this time, he was editing the influential literary magazine The Poetry Review.

From 1913 he enjoyed a modicum of success with his poetry bookshop on Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury.  He published more work at his own expense, occasionally making a profit from his endeavours.  This was a place for casual browsers and readers, and where new poets could go for inspiration and encouragement.  There were rooms above the shop which were let out on short term leases to writers such as Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, one of the so-called “Georgian Poets”.  Monro would later collaborate with Edward Marsh on the Georgian Poetry series, a five-book anthology of poems written during the reign of King George V, covering the years 1911 to 1922.

Monro was 35 years old when war broke out and there is no record of any period of military service.  He became well known for a quartet of war poems called Youth in Arms, work that was produced during the early stages of the war.  Literary critics have suggested that the author was a pioneer in envisaging the

and that he understood

One of the poems in this small collection was dedi

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(1879–1932), (Harold Edward Monro), Proposals for a Voluntary Nobility, The Chronicle of a Pilgrimage, Poetry Review

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