Richard Aldington: Versatile Man of Letters

Richard Aldington was a British poet, a literary critic, a translator, a novelist, a biographer, and a formidable letter-writer. He was sponsored by Ezra Pound as an Imagist poet before World War I, and he married H.D., the American poet and novelist, in 1913. Aldington is commemorated in Westminster Abbey as one of the WWI War Poets. 

Following demobilization, he joined the staff of The Times Literary Supplement as a reviewer of French books, and became a friend of D.H. Lawrence and T.S. Eliot. In 1928, he moved to Paris, where he wrote a bitter war novel, Death of A Hero. Between 1928 and 1939, Aldington published six more novels including the romantic All Men Are Enemies and the feminist Women Must Work. He continued to write poetry, including A Dream in the Luxembourg, and to make translations, including The Decameron.  

In 1939, Aldington moved to the United States and completed an anthology, The Viking Book of Poetry of the English-Speaking World. He stayed in New York City, Connecticut, and Florida before moving to Hollywood, where he worked as a screenwriter and completed a biography of the Duke of Wellington. 

After World War II, Aldington returned to France and focused on anthologies and biography. His Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry brought him into conflict with the British establishment, and his works were substantially allowed to go out of print. As a result, Aldington was short of money but was supported by friends such as Bryher, Lawrence Durrell, and the Australian poet Alastair Kershaw. He died in France in 1962 following a triumphant visit to Russia, where his novels were very popular. 

Aldington could be a difficult man, and some of his later output has been criticized as bitter. Although now largely overlooked, the reputation of Aldington has been tended by The New Canterbury Literary Society, and by a steady issuance of scholarly articles and publications, culminating in the recent exceptional two-volume biography by Vivien Whelpton.  

In 1973, I bought a copy of Portrait of a Genius, But…, Aldington’s biography of his friend, D.H. Lawrence, the ‘other‘ Lawrence. I read this sitting outside a pub in Hampshire and thought that some of Aldington’s comments were hilarious. I was hooked. I started to collect Aldington, and I have never stopped. In 2008, I bought the substantial collection of a fellow collector who was my leading competitor, and I believe that I now have the largest collection of Aldington in private hands. 

There are so many interesting aspects to Aldington: the quality of his writing, the range of his work, the breadth and depth of his scholarship, the interest of his voluminous correspondence, the extent and evolution of his friendships, and his complicated personal life.   

I hope that you enjoy learning about this fascinating man. 

- Simon Hewett, Curator