Edwin Muir (1887–1959)
Author of Collected Poems
About the Author
One of the foremost practitioners of modern Scottish letters, Edwin Muir was born to a farming family in the remote Orkney Islands. Forced to move with his family to the industrial city of Glasgow when he was 13, Muir held a series of minor and often grubby jobs before supporting himself mainly show more through journalism and occasional teaching. In 1919, he married Willa Anderson, and in his An Autobiography An Autobiography (1940) would describe their marriage as "the most fortunate event in my life." Willa Muir not only encouraged her husband to write but collaborated with him on numerous translations and other works. They were the first to translate the works of Franz Kafka (see Vol. 2) into English. Her own, moving autobiography, Belonging Belonging, is both an engrossing account and a minor masterpiece in its own right. In later life, Muir worked for the British Council, was warden of an adult educational college in Scotland, and served as visiting Charles Eliot Norton professor at Harvard University. Muir's poetry stands somewhat aloof from more flamboyant varieties of modernism, yet won the respect of both T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats. Often cast in seemingly traditional rhymes and meters, his verse depended on a vision, which Kathleen Raine described as "the perennial philosophy." Muir looked beneath surfaces of the world for archetypes of a primal and now-lost unity of the soul with the world. Sometimes he used the Scottish landscape and sometimes earlier mythology to convey his vision, as in One Foot in Eden One Foot in Eden (1956). Muir's criticism and translations are still worth reading as well. Among his critical works are Scott and ScotlandScott and Scotland (1936), Essays on Literature and Society (1949), and Structure of the NovelStructure of the Novel (1928). Though not known as a novelist, his most notable is The MarionetteThe Marionette (1927). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Photo from Poetry since 1939, British Council, 1945
Series
Works by Edwin Muir
Orion: A Miscellany Volume 1 — Editor — 6 copies
The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories — Translator — 4 copies
Variations on a Time Theme 3 copies
The Voyage & other stories 1 copy
New poets, 1959 1 copy
The Three Brothers 1 copy
エドウィン・ミュア詩集 1 copy
Associated Works
The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces (1919) — Translator, some editions — 982 copies, 8 reviews
Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Penguin Modern Classics) (1961) — Translator, some editions — 818 copies, 4 reviews
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (1998) — Contributor — 496 copies, 2 reviews
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th Edition, Volume 2 (1979) — Contributor — 269 copies, 1 review
Success: Three Years in the Life of a Province (1930) — Translator, some editions — 209 copies, 6 reviews
The Island of the Great Mother; or, The Miracle of île des dames: A story from the Utopian archipelago (1924) — Translator, some editions — 30 copies
The Enigmatic Czar: The Life of Alexander I of Russia (1937) — Translator, some editions — 10 copies
The Reviewer, Volume IV, Numbers 1-5 (October 1923-October 1924) — Contributor — 1 copy
Two Anglo-Saxon plays: The Oil islands, Warren Hastings, — Translator, some editions — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Moore, Edward
- Birthdate
- 1887-05-15
- Date of death
- 1959-01-03
- Gender
- male
- Education
- self-educated
- Occupations
- poet
translator
literary critic
novelist
essayist
journalist - Organizations
- Hayford Hall Circle
Royal Society of Literature (1953) - Awards and honors
- Order of the British Empire (Commander ∙ 1953)
Johann-Heinrich-Voss Translation Award - Relationships
- Muir, Willa (wife)
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Deerness, Orkney Islands, Scotland, UK
- Places of residence
- Glasgow, Scotland, UK
London, England, UK - Place of death
- Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
- Burial location
- The church of St. Cyriac & St. Julitta, Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire, England
- Associated Place (for map)
- UK
Members
Reviews
Rather self-indulgent, which I suppose is a risk for an autobiography, particularly a lengthy section about his dreams. The account of his childhood in Orkney was fascinating, however, and of his time in Prague during the communist coup. The rest was very dull. I didn't come away with a liking for the man.
Lists
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 43
- Also by
- 35
- Members
- 632
- Popularity
- #39,872
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 2
- ISBNs
- 59
- Languages
- 3
- Favorited
- 6
