Clifford Bax

Clifford Bax (13 July 1886 - 18 November 1962) was a versatile English writer, known particularly as a playwright, a journalist, critic and editor, and a poet, lyricist and hymn writer. He also was a translator, for example of Goldoni. The composer Arnold Bax was his brother, and set some of his words to music.

Related Topics:
13 July - 1886 - 18 November - 1962 - Goldoni - Arnold Bax

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Independent wealth gave Bax time to write, and social connections. He had an apartment in The Albany. He was a friend of Gustav Holst, whom he introduced to astrology, and Arthur Ransome, amongst others. He met and played chess with Aleister Crowley in 1904, and kept up an acquaintance with him over the years, later in the 1930s introducing both the artist Frieda Harris and the writer John Symonds to him. An early venture (1908-1914) was Orpheus, a theosophical magazine he edited. His interest in the esoteric extended to editing works of Jakob Boehme, and helping Allan Bennett, the Buddhist.

Related Topics:
The Albany - Gustav Holst - Astrology - Arthur Ransome - Aleister Crowley - Frieda Harris - John Symonds - Theosophical - Jakob Boehme - Allan Bennett

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He was born in Knightsbridge, London. Education was at the Slade and the Heatherly Art School. He gave up painting to concentrate on writing.

Related Topics:
Knightsbridge - Slade - Heatherly Art School

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His first play on the commercial stage was The Poetasters of Ispahan (1912), and he became a fixture of British drama for a generation. He was involved in the Phoenix Society (1919-1926), concerned with reviving older plays, and the Incorporated Stage Society.

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He also edited, with Austin Osman Spare, Golden Hind, an artistic and literary magazine that appeared from October 1922 to July 1924.

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He married in 1927 Vera, nee Rawnsley, a painter and poet (1888-1974). She had married previously Stanley Kennedy North, an artist, and Alexander Bell Filson Young (1876-1938), a journalist; Bax's two stepsons by the second of those marriages were both killed in World War II.

Related Topics:
Alexander Bell Filson Young - World War II

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