Howard Spring
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Howard Spring (10 February 1889 – 3 May 1965) was a Welsh author and journalist who wrote in English.
Biography
Howard Spring was born in
In 1911 he joined the Yorkshire Observer in
After the war, he returned to the Guardian, where he worked as a reporter.
At the same time, Spring was developing his ambitions as a writer; his first book, Darkie and Co., a children's story, came out in 1932, followed by his first novel,
The children's story Sampson's Circus, illustrated by
His first major success in the adult market came with My Son, My Son (1937), originally titled O Absalom,[5] which was successful in America and adapted there as the 1940 film My Son, My Son!. It was adapted for television by the BBC in 1977. WorldCat libraries report editions in Chinese, German, Hebrew and four other languages.[6]
In 1939 Spring moved to Mylor in Cornwall to become a full-time writer. (His wife Marion's father had a house at St Mawes.) In 1940, his best-known work appeared: Fame Is the Spur, the story of a Labour leader's rise to power. During the war years Spring wrote two other novels, Hard Facts (1944) and Dunkerley's (1946).
In 1947 Spring and his wife moved to Falmouth, The White Cottage in Fenwick Road,[7] and in the post-war period he published There Is No Armour (1948), The Houses in Between (1951), A Sunset Touch (1953), These Lovers Fled Away (1955), Time and the Hour (1957), All the Day Long (1959), I Met a Lady (1961), and his last book was Winds of the Day (1964). Spring also produced three volumes of autobiography: Heaven Lies About Us, A Fragment of Infancy (1939); In the Meantime (1942); and And Another Thing (1946), later published in one volume as The Autobiography of Howard Spring (Collins, 1972).[8]
During this period Spring served eight years as President of the prestigious
Spring was a successful writer, who combined a wide understanding of human character with technical skill as a novelist. His method of composition was painstaking. Each morning he would shut himself in his room and write a thousand words, steadily building up to novels of around 150,000 words. He rarely made major alterations to his writings.[9]
Howard Spring died of a stroke. In 1967, his widow, Marion Spring, wrote an affectionate story of their life together, called Howard, with a foreword by A. L. Rowse. It was published by Collins.
Works
- Darkie And Co, (1932)
- Shabby Tiger, (1934)
- The World's Greatest Detective Stories, (1934)
- Rachel Rosing, (1935)
- Sampson's Circus, (1936)
- O Absalom (title in US: My Son, My Son), (1938)
- Book Parade, (1938)
- Heaven Lies About Us, (1939)
- Fame Is the Spur, (1940)
- Tumbledown Dick: All People And No Plot, (1939)
- All They Like Sheep, (1940)
- In The Meantime, (1942)
- This War We Wage, (1942) [with E M DELAFIELD & Herbert MORRISON]
- Hard Facts, (1944)
- And Another Thing, (1946)
- Dunkerley's, (1946)
- There Is No Armour, (1948)
- Christmas Honeymoon, (1949)
- Christmas Awake, (1949)
- The Houses in Between, (1951)
- Jinny Morgan, (1952, play)
- A Sunset Touch, (1953)
- Three Plays, (1953) [Jinny Morgan; The Gentle Assassin; St George...]
- These Lovers Fled Away, (1955)
- Time and the Hour, (1957)
- All the Day Long, (1959)
- I Met a Lady, (1961)
- Winds of the Day, (1964)
Source: [10]
See also
References
- ^ "Biography and bibliography of Howard Spring – Howard Spring". abfar.org.uk.
- ^ "Howard Spring". BFI. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012.
- ^ "The Autobiography of Howard Spring (1972)". Reading 1900-1950. 16 September 2013.
- ^ "Carnegie Medal Award". 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
- ^ "Howard Spring". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ^ ""Formats and Editions of My son, my son". WorldCat. Retrieved 22 August 2012".
- ^ "Country Life".
- ^ "Formats and Editions of The autobiography of Howard Spring". WorldCat. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
- ^ "Howard Spring". Goodreads.
External links
- Works by Howard Spring at Faded Page (Canada)
- "Formats and Editions of Sampson's Circus" at WorldCat
- Howard Spring Manuscripts at the John Rylands Library, Manchester.