Identity area
Reference code
Watson/5/29
Unique identifier
Title
Date(s)
- 1954 - 2013 (Creation)
Level of description
Subseries
Extent and medium
Paper.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
George Grimes Watson was born in Brisbane, Australia, on 13 October 1927. He was educated at Brisbane Boys' College and the University of Queensland, where he graduated in 1948 with a degree in English. He secured a scholarship for a second degree and received an English degree from Trinity College, Oxford in 1950; he worked for the European Commission as an interpreter before becoming a lecturer in English at Cambridge in 1959 and a Fellow of St John's College in 1961. He remained at St John's until his death on 2 August 2013.
Watson edited 'The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature'. As well as producing wide-ranging literary and cultural criticism, he was involved in leftist politics, campaigning as a Liberal candidate in 1959 and 1979 and working as Editor for the Unservile State Group; his political writing often critiques socialism from a liberal perspective.
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
This subseries gathers offprints of articles by George Watson not represented earlier in the series. Items will ultimately be catalogued individually; for now, a list follows.
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‘The Text of the “Biographia Literaria”’ (‘Notes and Queries’, 199) (1954)
Review of ‘The Poems of John Dryden’, ed. James Kingsley (‘The Journal of English and Germanic Philology’, 58:3) (1959)
'Scientists for export' (letter, 'The Spectator', 29 September 1961) (1961)
‘Dryden’s First Answer to Rymer’ (‘The Review of English Studies,’ 14:53) (1963)
‘Dryden and the Scientific Image’ (‘Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London’, 18:1) (1963)
‘The Triumph of T.S. Eliot’ (‘Critical Quarterly’, 7:4) (1965)
Review of ‘The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals: 1824-1900’, edited by Walter Houghton (‘The Cambridge Review’, October 22 1966) (1966)
‘Arnold and the Victorian Mind’ (‘A Review of English Literature’, 8:3) (1967)
Review of René Wellek's 'A History of Modern Criticism 1750-1950' ('The Review of English Studies', 73) (1968)
‘The Language of the Metaphysicals’ (‘Literary English Since Shakespeare’) (1970)
Review of Frank Kermode’s ‘Spenser, Donne: Renaissance Essays’ and Cleanth Brooks’s ‘A Shaping Joy: Studies in the Writer’s Craft’ (‘The Review of English Studies’, 90) (1972)
Review of Marilyn Butler’s ‘Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography’ (‘Journal of English and Germanic Philology’, 72:3) (1973)
‘The Greatest Johnian (so far)’, review of ‘The Prose Works of William Wordsworth’, edited by W J B Owen and Jane W Smyser (‘The Eagle’, 282) (1974)
‘The Accuracy of Lord Byron’ (‘Critical Quarterly’, 17:2) (1975)
‘Quest for a Frenchman’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 84:3) (1976)
‘Machiavel and Machiavelli’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 84:4) (1976)
'Literary research: Thoughts for an agenda' ('Times Literary Supplement', 25 February 1977) (1977)
'Home truths for the intelligentsia', review of Diana Trilling's 'We Must March My Darlings' ('Times Literary Supplement', 24 February 1978) (1978)
Exchange with John Carey on the matter of 'evaluation' ('Times Literary Supplement', 22 February, 7 March and 11 April 1980) (1980)
'A liking for lucre', review of John McVeagh's 'Tradefull Merchants' ('Times Literary Supplement', 4 September 1981) (1981)
'The Higher Cosiness', review of Richard Hoggart's 'An English Temper' ('Times Literary Supplement', 26 March 1982) (1982)
‘La Nouvelle Critique: Portrait of a Dinosaur’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 90:4) (1982)
'Cambridge English' (letter, 'London Review of Books', 1-14 September 1983) (1983)
'Plain English' (letter, 'London Review of Books', 21 February 1985)
‘Orwell’s Nazi Renegade’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 94:3) (1986)
‘The First English “Vita nuova”’ (‘Huntington Library Quarterly’, 49:4) (1986)
‘Tory Alice’ (‘The American Scholar’, 55:4) (1986)
‘Educating the Prime Minister’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 40:2) (1987)
‘Cities of Light’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 40:4) (1988)
‘Larkin Ascending’ (‘The American Scholar’, 57:3) (1988)
‘The Sense of Unending’ (‘Studies in French Literature in Honour of Vivienne Mylne’) (1988)
‘The Americanness of American Poetry’ (‘Virginia Quarterly Review’, 65:1) (1989)
‘Letter from Cambridge: Britain and the Brain Gain’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 42:2) (1989)
‘The Singular Friendship: Yeats and Pound at Stone Cottage’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 42:3) (1989)
‘A Common European Home’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 43:3) (1990)
‘Shakespeare and the Norman Conquest: English in the Elizabethan Theatre’ (‘Virginia Quarterly Review’, 66:4) (1990)
‘The Art of Disagreement: C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 48:2) (1995)
‘I Was Kingsley Amis’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 49:4) (1997)
Cutting from 'The Wilson Quarterly' (Autumn 1997) referring to 'The Messiah of Modernism: F.R. Leavis 1895-1978' ('The Hudson Review', 50:2) (1997)
‘The Death of the Avant-Garde’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 105:4) (1997)
‘Thoughts on a Dead Elephant’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 50:3) (1997)
Letter about ‘The Death of the Avant-Garde’ ('PN Review', 122) (1998)
‘Americanophilia’ (‘The American Scholar’, 69:2) (2000)
‘Remembering Prufrock: Hugh Sykes Davies 1909-1984’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 109:4) (2001)
‘The Future in Your Bones: C.P. Snow (1905-80)’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 54:4) (2002)
'Schwerins vergessener Dichter: Charles Hamilton Sorley aus Cambridge' ('Schweriner Volkszeitung', 12 January 2003) (2003)
‘The Curse of Fred’ (‘The Hudson Review’, 56:3) (2003)
‘The Empire of Lionel Trilling’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 115:3) (2007)
‘Elegy for a Cold Warrior: Melvin Lasky 1920-2004’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 115:4) (2007)
‘Dining with Allen Tate’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 116:3) (2008)
‘The High Road to Narnia’ (‘The American Scholar’, 78:1) (2009)
‘The Q Factor’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 117:2) (2009)
‘The Trope: Hugh Trevor-Roper’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 118:4) (2010)
‘The Forgotten Churchill’ (‘The American Scholar’, 80:3) (2011)
‘The Rain in Spain’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 119:3) (2011)
‘An Unquenchable Gaiety of Mind’ (‘The American Scholar’, 81:3) (2012)
‘Kermode on Kermode’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 120:4) (2012)
‘Rhyme and Reason’ (‘The Sewanee Review’, 121:2) (2013)