Francis Berry

Francis Berry (23 March 1915 – 10 October 2006^[1]) was a British academic, poet, critic and translator.

He was born in Ipoh, Malaya, and educated at the University of London and the University of Exeter. After serving as a soldier, and then as a schoolteacher in Malta, he held various appointments in English literature. He was professor of English Literature at the University of Sheffield from 1947 to 1970, where he was a friend of William Empson.^[2] From 1970 until his retirement in 1980, he was professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. He also wrote radio plays, and a novel I Tell of Greenland (1977).

His first collection of poetry, Gospel of Fire, was published in 1933; his Collected Poems, drawing on 11 books, appeared in 1994. His work has been praised by G. Wilson Knight^[3] and Philip Hobsbaum.^[4]

His critical writing includes books on John Masefield and Herbert Read.

Book

• I tell of Greenland: an edited translation of the Saudarkrokur manuscripts. Francis Berry, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977.

Notes

1. ↑ Daily Telegraph obituary
2. ↑ Haffenden, John, ed., Selected Letters of William Empson, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 387, 423-4, 455, 686.
3. ↑ Obituary, The Guardian, 31 October 2006
4. ↑ Hobsbaum, Philip, Tradition and Experiment in English Poetry, 1979

External links

• Francis Berry Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin