List of writers associated with Balliol College, Oxford

This is a list of writers associated with Balliol College, Oxford.

Authors Novelists, playwrights and screenwriters Image Name Join Date Theme Comments RefsWilliam Hurrell Mallock1869novelCatholic writer who opposed socialism The New RepublicBalliol College Register (Second Edition) by Ivo Elliott 1934Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins1881adventure fictionThe Prisoner of ZendaAldous Huxley1913dystopian fictionauthor of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962L. P. Hartley1915family relationshipswrote of morality, society and the loss of innocence The Go-Between was made into a film.Beverley Nichols1916emotions"Down the Garden Path"Nevil Shute1918dignity of workHis novels A Town Like Alice, Trustee from the Toolroom and On the Beach featured on the 1998 list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th centuryThomas Owen Beachcroft1921publicist, poet and writerChief Overseas Publicity Officer for the BBCA Young Man in a Hurry and Other Stories 1934You Must Break Out Sometimes and Other Stories 1936The English Short Story 1964Graham Greene1922thrillerOne of the leading novelists of the 20th century, shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Best known for his 'Catholic novels' exploring moral and political conflicts, especially the contest between the socialist state and private morality. Awarded OM. The Power and the GloryAnthony Powell1923book seriesHis famous series A Dance to the Music of Time (ranked 36th on the BBC list of 100 greatest British novels Ciabattari, Jane (7 December 2015). "The 100 greatest British novels". BBC. Retrieved 8 December 2015.) earned him the title 'The English Proust'. Robertson Davies1935trilogyOne of Canada's best-known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished "men of letters". His prize-winning novels and trilogies explore Jungian psychology, magic and classical myth.The Deptford TrilogyDan Davin1936New ZealandRhodes Scholar, Fellow"Cliffs of Fall"W. J. Burley1950detective storyWycliffeKyril Bonfiglioli1955comedy thrillerMortdecaiRobert Barnard1956crime fiction"Death of an Old Goat"Ian Watson1960science fictionWarhammer 40,000 trilogyMartin Fido1963true crimeFellowTaught English at University of the West Indies and Boston UniversityMartin Edwards1974crime novelistWinner of the Diamond DaggerLake District Mysteries"a crime writer's crime writer"winning Captain Christmas University ChallengeMick Herron1981espionageWinner of the Gold DaggerSlough House novel seriesSlow Horses TV seriesCharlotte Jones1986playwrightThe HalcyonWW2 period drama TV seriesAmit Chaudhuri1987creative writing"A Strange and sublime address" Zia Haider Rahman1987trustIn the Light of What We Know Rana Dasgupta1990globalisationTokyo Cancelled Balliol College Register (Sixth Edition) by John Jones and Catherine Willbery 1993

Biographers including auto-biographers Image Name Join date Theme Comments Refs John Evelyn1637diaristFRSdid not graduate John Gibson Lockhart1809novelistbiographer wrote standard biography of Sir Walter Scott, his father-in-law John Addington Symonds1857biographerwrote on Percy Bysshe Shelley, Michelangelo et al. Sir Sidney Lee1878man of letterseditor, Dictionary of National Biography John Stewart Collis1918biographerbiography of George Bernard ShawThe Worm Forgives the Plough about working the land in WWII Peter Quennell(left)1923historical writer"the last genuine example of the English man of letters"'Sir Peter Quennell', in The Times, 29 October 1993, p. 23. Francis King1941novelistYesterday Came Suddenly, 1993 autobiography Nicholas Mosley1946novelistpeer, wrote critical biography of his father, the fascist Sir Oswald Mosley Warren Rovetch 1949travel writerFulbright ScholarThe Creaky Traveler Ved Mehta1956authorFellow, blindautobiographer in several books Howard Marks1964cannabis dealerServed 7 years of a 25 year prison sentence in Terre Haute, Indiana after which he wrote the bestseller Mr Nice and became an activist for the legalisation of cannabis Johnny Acton1984ghostwriterFarmercookery writer Carmen Bugan2000poet, scholar, teacher, memoiristRomanian-American Burying the Typewriter: Childhood Under the Eye of the Secret PoliceBalliol College Newsletter, March 2026

Literary scholars Image Name Joindate Field of work Comments RefsHerbert Coleridge 1847philologisteditor Oxford English DictionaryJohn Nichol 1855literary criticRegius Professor of English Literature, GlasgowByron, Burns, CarlyleJohn Churton Collins 1867literary criticProfessor, BirminghamThe Study of English Literature "a louse in the locks of literature" (Tennyson)Henry Sweet 1869phoneticistA Handbook of PhoneticsHenry Watson Fowler 1880lexicographerA Dictionary of Modern English UsageConcise Oxford English Dictionary"a lexicographical genius" (The Times)Logan Pearsall Smithsecond right 1887essayistWords and Idioms"The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of their blood." Cyril Connolly 1922literary criticEnemies of PromiseJohn Livingston Lowes 1930Samuel Taylor ColeridgeGeoffrey Chaucerfirst Eastman Professortaught at Washington University in St. Louis, and Harvard UniversityDavid Daiches 1934literary history FellowA Critical History of English Literature The Penguin Companion to LiteratureGeorge Steiner 1950comparative literature Rhodes Scholar, Hon. FellowProfessor at Geneva, Oxford, HarvardPolyglot and polymathBalliol College Register (Seventh Edition) by Tom Bewley and John Jones. 2005.John Minford1964sinologistTranslator of The Story of the Stone, The Art of War, the I Ching and the Tao Te Ching

Poets Image Name Join dateKnown asKnown forRefs Sir Edward Dyer (1561) Courtier and Poet Chancellor of the Order of the GarterMP for Somerset 1589- a candidate in the Shakespearean authorship question (Alden Brooks 1943) According to Anthony Wood (quoted in ONDB) he went to either Balliol or Broadgates Hall. He is listed as a student at Oxford in Fosters, but no college is given. From this evidence, there is no more than a 50% chance he was at Balliol. Robert Southey 1792 DNG Romantic PoetPoet Laureate Goldilocks and the Three BearsAfter BlenheimBut what good came of it at last? Quoth little Peterkin. Why that I cannot tell," said he, But 'twas a famous victory. Biography of Robert Southey accessed 25 November 2024 Arthur Hugh Clough 1836 secretarial assistant to Florence Nightingale his sister and daughter both became principals of Newnham College, CambridgeThe Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich John Campbell Shairp 1839 pastoral poetProfessor of Humanity, St AndrewsOxford Professor of Poetry "The Poetic Interpretation of Nature" 1877 Matthew Arnold 1840 cultural criticsage writerOxford Professor of Poetryschool inspector The Scholar GipsyDover Beach Francis Turner Palgrave 1842 anthologistOxford Professor or Poetry Golden Treasury Charles Stuart Calverley (born Blayds) 1849 (expelled 1850) Fellow, Christ's Cambridgehumourist "Ode to Tobacco" (1862) is on a bronze plaque in Cambridge market square Algernon Charles Swinburne 1855 (rusticated 1859) poet-novelist-criticmasochist nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1903 to 1909Poems and Ballads Gerard Manley Hopkins 1863 Jesuit priestprofessor of Classics UCD 1884sprung rhythm though publishing little while alive, has experienced posthumous fame that placed him among leading English poets with his prosody establishing him as an innovator, as did his praise of God through vivid use of imagery and nature; by 1930 Hopkins's work was seen as one of the most original literary advances of his centuryThe Wreck of the Deutschland"the most original poet of the Victorian age" (Ricks 1991) Andrew Lang 1864 FBA, polymathpoet, novelist, literary critic, anthropologist, folklorist Myth, Ritual and Religion (1887) Lang's Fairy Books 1889 - Robert Browning1867Poet and playwright"the most considerable poet in English since the major Romantics" (Harold Bloom 2004), was a personal friend of the Master Benjamin Jowett and became the college's first Honorary Fellow, donating his portrait and other memorabilia to the college, which grew to become "one of the most distinguished collections of Browning material" Andrew Cecil Bradley 1869 Shakespeare scholarOxford Professor of Poetry "Shakespearean Tragedy" 1904, probably the most influential single work of Shakespearean criticism ever published Gauntlett, Mark. "The Perishable Body of the Unpoetic: A. C. Bradley Performs Othello." Shakespeare Survey Volume 47: Playing Places for Shakespeare. Ed. Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 1994.I dreamt last night that Shakespeare’s Ghost Sat for a civil service post. The English paper for that year Had several questions on King Lear Which Shakespeare answered very badly Because he hadn’t read his Bradley. William Money Hardinge 1872 The 'Balliol Bugger' gay literature"Clifford Gray: A Romance of Modern Life" 1881 Henry Charles Beeching 1878 Professor of Pastoral Theology KCL 1900-03Dean of Norwich "A paradise of English Poetry" 1893"The Masque of B-ll—l" 1880 First come I; my name is Jowett. There's no knowledge but I know it. I am master of this college: What I don't know isn't knowledge. UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE' Daily News (London, England), Tuesday, 29 June 1880; Issue 10670 Count Eric Stenbock 1879 DNG Baltic Swedish poet writing in English Macabre fiction and poetry"The Song of the Unwept Tear" covered by Marc Almond in Feasting with PanthersStudies of death : romantic tales 1894 A Brief Life of Count Stenbock retrieved 25 November 2024 Hilaire Belloc 1892 Liberal MP for Salford South 1906-10Catholic literary revival "Cautionary Tales for Children"The nicest child I ever knew Was Charles Augustus Fortescue. He never lost his cap, or tore His stockings or his pinafore:

Balliol made me, Balliol fed me, Whatever I had she gave me again; And the best of Balliol loved and led me, God be with you, Balliol men Walter Lyon 1905 WW1 war poet "Easter at Ypres""I Tracked a Dead Man Down a Trench" Julian Grenfell 1906 WW1 war poetBiography 1976 by Nicholas Mosley (Balliol 1946) DSO"Into Battle" 1915 The thundering line of battle stands, And in the air Death moans and sings; But Day shall clasp him with strong hands, And Night shall fold him in soft wings. Patrick Shaw-Stewart 1906 WW1 war poet "Achilles in the Trench"

I saw a man this morning Who did not wish to die; I ask, and cannot answer, if otherwise wish I. Balliol College Register (Third Edition) by Ivo Elliott 1953 Joseph Macleod1926British poet, actor, playwrighttheatre director, theatre historian and BBC newsreaderOne of the earliest interpreters of Chekhov in the UK, whom Basil Bunting claimed was the most important living British poet, while also gaining admiration from Ezra Pound

Riddle-me-ree 1971

"I was afraid and they gave me guts. I was alone and they made me love. Round that wild heat they built a furnace and in the torment smelted me. Out of my fragments came design: I was assembled. I moved, I worked, I grew receptive. Thanks to them I have fashioned me.