John Stewart Collis

John Stewart Collis (1900-1984) was a British biographer.

Life

The son of an Irish solicitor, John Stewart Collis was educated at Rugby and Oxford. A writer of biographies and other works, his first book on George Bernard Shaw, was published in 1925, followed by biographies of Havelock Ellis, Strindberg, Tolstoy, the Carlyles and Christopher Columbus. He is remembered largely for "While Following the Plough" (1946) and "Down to Earth" (1947: as one volume, "The Worm Forgives the Plough", 1973), works inspired by the years he spent working as a farm labourer in Dorset and Sussex during the Second World War. His autobiography "Bound Upon A Course" brought him belated recognition as a pioneer in the ecological movement, who wrote with imagination and authenticity of rural life. [Adapted from "The Oxford Companion to English Literature", ed. Drabble, Margaret]

"The Worm Forgives the Plough" will be reissued by Vintage Classics [http://www.vintage-classics.info] in August 2009.

Bibliography

* "Shaw"
* "Forward to Nature"
* "Farewell to Argument"
* "The Sounding's Cataract"
* "An Irishman's England"
* "An Artist of Life"
* "Marriage and Genius"
* "Leo Tolstoy"
* "The Carlyles"
* "Bound Upon A Course"
* "Christopher Columbus"
* "Living With a Stranger"
* "While Following the Plough"
* "Down to Earth"
* "The Triumph of the Tree"
* "The Moving Waters"
* "Paths of Light"
* "The Vision of Glory"
* "The Worm Forgives the Plough"

References

Persondata
NAME=Collis, John Stewart
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=British biographer
DATE OF BIRTH=1900
PLACE OF BIRTH=
DATE OF DEATH=1984
PLACE OF DEATH=