Ajay Kumar at 09:04, 18 September 2023

2023-09-18T09:04:23Z

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{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2012}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ernest Rhys
| image = Ernest Percival Rhys (1859–1946).png
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = Ernest Percival Rhys
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1859|07|17|df=yes}}
| birth_place = [[Islington]], London, England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1946|05|25|1859|07|17|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[London]], England
| burial_place =
| occupation = Writer, editor
| awards =
| spouse = {{Marriage|[[Grace Rhys|Grace Little]]|1891|15 March 1929|end=d.}}
| children = 5
| education =
| signature =
| party =
}}
'''Ernest Percival Rhys''' ({{IPAc-en|r|iː|s}} {{respell|REESS}}; 17 July 1859 – 25 May 1946) was a Welsh-English writer, best known for his role as founding editor of the [[Everyman's Library]] series of affordable classics. He wrote essays, stories, poetry, novels and plays.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=RHYS, Ernest|magazine=The International Who's Who in the World|year=1912|page=893|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-wRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA893}}</ref>

==Early life==
Rhys was born in [[Islington]] in north [[London]], the son of John Rees (his spelling) and his English wife Emma Percival of [[Hockerill]]. Shortly afterwards his father set up in the wine and spirits trade, working for [[Walter Gilbey]] in premises in Nott Square, [[Carmarthen]], where before marriage he had been in training for the ministry. The family was in Carmarthen for a number of years, and had a Welsh-speaking maid. In 1865 John Rees was transferred to another Gilbey shop, in [[Newcastle upon Tyne]].<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|id=35733|first=Katharine|last=Chubbuck|title=Rhys, Ernest Percival}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=John Kimberley |title=Ernest Rhys |date=1983 |publisher=University of Wales Press on behalf of the Welsh Arts Council |pages=1–2 }}</ref>

After home education with a governess, Rhys spent two years at [[Bishop's Stortford Grammar School]] as a boarder, leaving in poor health. He then attended a Newcastle school run by a German master, acquiring some German and French. He then spent a desultory period working in his father's office. In 1876 he took up an apprenticeship as a mining engineer, or "coal viewer". Against the wishes of his father, Rhys did not apply to the University of Oxford.<ref name="Roberts">{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=John Kimberley |title=Ernest Rhys |date=1983 |publisher=University of Wales Press on behalf of the Welsh Arts Council |page=3 }}</ref>

Rhys worked through his apprenticeship in the [[Durham coalfield]].<ref name="Whitman">{{cite book |last1=Harris |first1=Kirsten |title=Walt Whitman and British Socialism: "The Love of Comrades" |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317634812 |page=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3kV-CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 }}</ref><ref name="Thomas">{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=M. Wynn |title=Transatlantic Connections: Whitman U.S., Whitman U.K. |date=2009 |publisher=University of Iowa Press |isbn=9781587295997 |page=232 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GWItD5eBgaMC&pg=PA232 }}</ref><ref name="Williams">{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Daniel G. |title=Ethnicity and Cultural Authority: From Arnold to Du Bois |date=2005 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=9780748626274 |page=160 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XcuqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA160 }}</ref><ref name="Rose">{{cite book |last1=Rose |first1=Jonathan |title=The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes |date=2002 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=9780300098082 |page=133 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3B-qbvQTYyEC&pg=PA133 }}</ref> He passed his mining engineer examination. At this period he lived in a pit village in [[Lower Weardale]], and wrote extensively, poetry and prose, without being published. He set up a library, a book group and a programme of lectures. He described the miners' life in his story collection ''Black Horse Pit'' (1925).<ref name="Thomas"/><ref name="Rose"/><ref name="Roberts"/>

On his own account, Rhys owed his first literary commission, and his interest in poetry, to [[Joseph Skipsey]], whom he knew in Newcastle in the early 1880s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Henry |title=The Aspern Papers and Other Stories |date=2013 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=9780191637919 |page=xxi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XZhoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PR21 }}</ref> He was employed by the [[Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, of Beauclerc#Publishing|Walter Scott Publishing Co.]] of Newcastle. Initially he edited the works of [[George Herbert]] for its [[Canterbury Poets]] series.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Halloran |first1=William F. |title=The Life and Letters of William Sharp and "Fiona Macleod". Volume 1: 1855-1894 |date=2018 |publisher=Open Book Publishers |isbn=9781783745036 |page=92 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ijp8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT92 }}</ref> After that he was employed doing editorial work on its [[Camelot Series]], of reprints and translations. Rhys later wrote that the approach was based on the mistaken idea that he was the academic [[John Rhys]].<ref name="Williams"/>

==Early associations==
Rhys had connections to the [[Fabian Society]], and the [[Socialist League (UK, 1885)|Socialist League]] led by [[William Morris]], though he did not join the League.<ref>{{cite book |last1=DeSpain |first1=Jessica |title=Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Embodied Book |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317087250 |page=155 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JiIfDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA155 }}</ref> He was a friend of [[Percival Chubb]] (1860–1960), eventually President of the [[American Ethical Union]]. In his early life, Chubb was a disciple of [[Thomas Davidson (philosopher)|Thomas Davidson]], founder of the [[Fellowship of the New Life]], and indirectly of the Fabian Society. Chubb with Rhys at the start of the 1880s mixed in these circles, and also with the [[Social Democratic Federation]]. Rhys kept up during the decade with socialists such as [[Edward Carpenter]].<ref name="Whitman"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=MacKenzie |first1=Norman Ian |last2=MacKenzie |first2=Jeanne |title=The First Fabians |date=1979 |publisher=Quartet Books |page=21 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Chubb, Percival Ashley, 1860-1960, Fabian - Archives Hub |url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/18dfc4cd-9f0e-3d2a-ab2e-433b1d48ef9f |website=archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk}}</ref>

Rhys was one of a number of British socialists who visited [[Walt Whitman]];<ref>{{cite book |last1=Harris |first1=Kirsten |title=Walt Whitman and British Socialism: 'The Love of Comrades' |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317634805 |page=13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A0Z-CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT13 }}</ref> it followed a postal introduction in 1885 by [[William Michael Rossetti]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=DeSpain |first1=Jessica |title=Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Embodied Book |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317087250 |page=157 note 37 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JiIfDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA157 }}</ref>

==In London==
Turning to writing in London as a profession from 1886, Rhys built up a steady reputation as a reviewer for periodicals.<ref name="ODNB"/> The American journey on which the meeting with Walt Whitman occurred is described in ''Everyman Remembers'', Rhys's autobiography. It was also the occasion of his encounter with [[Edmund Clarence Stedman]] in New York, and dates to 1887/8. He and Stedman became correspondents.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nelson |first1=James G. |title=The Early Nineties: A View from the Bodley Head |url=https://archive.org/details/earlyninetiesvie0000nels |url-access=registration |date=1971 |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/earlyninetiesvie0000nels/page/158 158] |isbn=9780674222250 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sealts |first1=Merton M. |last2=Sealts |first2=Professor Merton M. Jr |title=Pursuing Melville, 1940-1980: Chapters and Essays |date=1982 |publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press |isbn=9780299088705 |page=[https://archive.org/details/pursuingmelville00seal/page/198 198] |url=https://archive.org/details/pursuingmelville00seal |url-access=registration }}</ref><ref name="Roberts4">{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=John Kimberley |title=Ernest Rhys |date=1983 |publisher=University of Wales Press on behalf of the Welsh Arts Council |page=4 }}</ref> In 1890, he was sharing rooms in [[Hampstead]] with [[Arthur Symons]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sloan |first1=John |title=John Davidson, First of the Moderns: A Literary Biography |date=1995 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=9780198182481 |page=62 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2HQQ_aNP2iAC&pg=PA62 }}</ref>

Rhys married his wife [[Grace Rhys|Grace]] in 1891.<ref name="ODNB"/> She began to write herself after the marriage, which produced five children.<ref name="EF">{{cite book |last1=Kemp |first1=Sandra |last2=Mitchell |first2=Charlotte |last3=Trotter |first3=David |title=The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780198605348 |page=340 }}</ref> Initially they lived in a cottage on [[Moel y Gamelin]] near [[Llangollen]], but it proved impractical for the literary life, and they returned to London.<ref name="Roberts4"/> Their first home there was in the [[Vale of Health]] area of Hampstead, having according to Rhys a literary association with [[James Henry Leigh Hunt|Leigh Hunt]], who moved to the unsalubrious Vale in 1816.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rhys |first1=Ernest |title=Everyman Remembers |url=https://archive.org/details/everymanremember0000rhys |url-access=registration |date=1931 |publisher=Cosmopolitan Book Corporation |page=[https://archive.org/details/everymanremember0000rhys/page/213 213] }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Holden |first1=Anthony |title=The Wit in the Dungeon: The Life of Leigh Hunt |date=2016 |publisher=Little, Brown Book Group |isbn=9781408708699 |pages=95–6 }}</ref> They moved on from "Hunt Cottage", but within Hampstead so-called, to a house in Hermitage Lane, now [[Childs Hill]], which they named "Derwen".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=John Kimberley |title=Ernest Rhys |date=1983 |publisher=University of Wales Press on behalf of the Welsh Arts Council |page=5 }}</ref> The Rhyses there held a form of literary ''salon''.<ref name="Sutherland">{{cite book |last1=Sutherland |first1=John |title=The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction |date=1990 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=9780804718424 |page=533 }}</ref>

In 1906, Rhys persuaded [[J. M. Dent]] the publisher to start out on the ambitious ''Everyman's Library'' project. When Rhys died in London on 25 May 1946, 983 ''Everyman'' titles had been produced.<ref name="ODNB"/><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-standard-mr-ernest-rhys-dies/131949561/ |title=Mr. Ernest Rhys dies |newspaper=[[Evening Standard]] |publication-place=London |page=5 |date=1946-05-25 |access-date=2023-09-17 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

==London associations==
In 1887 Rhys met [[W. B. Yeats]] at a Sunday political gathering called by Morris; he later introduced Yeats to the duo [[Michael Field (author)|Michael Field]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=Robert Fitzroy |title=W. B. Yeats: A Life |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780192880857 |page=63 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NVJNCSohHroC&pg=PA63 }}</ref> It was at a garden party held by Yeats that Rhys first met Grace Little, his future wife.<ref name="Roberts4"/>

In February 1890 Rhys was a founder member of the [[Rhymers' Club]] in London.<ref name="ODNB"/> In June of that year he met the poet [[John Davidson (poet)|John Davidson]] at a Sunday gathering in Hampstead held by [[William Sharp (writer)|William Sharp]]. Davidson became a recruit to the Rhymers' Club.<ref name="Sloan">{{cite book |last1=Sloan |first1=John |title=John Davidson, First of the Moderns: A Literary Biography |date=1995 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=9780198182481 |pages=58–9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2HQQ_aNP2iAC&pg=PA58 }}</ref> In its early form, the club was for "Celtic" poets.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gardner |first1=Joann |title=Yeats and the Rhymers' Club: A Nineties' Perspective |date=1989 |publisher=P. Lang |isbn=9780820407692 |page=9 }}</ref> That restriction changed in January 1891, with a meeting at the base of the [[Century Guild of Artists]] in [[Fitzrovia|Fitzroy Street]].<ref name="Sloan"/> Rhys also attended Yeats's evenings in the Woburn Buildings, St. Pancras, meeting there [[Maud Gonne]] and the young [[Rupert Brooke]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mikhail |first1=E. H. |title=W- B- Yeats: Interviews and Recollections |date=1977 |publisher=Macmillan International Higher Education |isbn=9781349029921 |page=38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UDBdDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 }}</ref>

Chapter XIX of ''Everyman Remembers'' describes an occasion at Rhys's home attended by Yeats, Davidson, [[Ezra Pound]], [[Ford Madox Hueffer]] and [[D. H. Lawrence]]. It has been argued that this gathering, dated to 1909, must be a conflation of events, since chronology makes it implausible that Davidson and Lawrence were both there.<ref>Kim Herzinger, ''The Night Pound ate the Tulips: An Evening at the Ernest Rhys's'', Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 8, No. 1 (1980), pp. 153–155. Published by: Indiana University Press. {{JSTOR|3831316}}</ref> That year, Rhys and [[Ernest Radford]] were 1890s figures invited to the founding meeting of the poets' club set up by [[F. S. Flint]] and [[T. E. Hulme]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pondrom |first1=Cyrena N. |title=The Road from Paris: French Influence on English Poetry 1900-1920 |date=1974 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521086813 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/roadfromparisfre0000pond/page/9 9]-10 |url=https://archive.org/details/roadfromparisfre0000pond |url-access=registration }}</ref>

The Rhyses also knew [[Arthur Waugh]] and his family, who included the authors [[Alec Waugh]] and [[Evelyn Waugh]]; Grace became a close friend of Arthur's wife Catherine. They had settled at Hillfield Road in [[West Hampstead]], having earlier lived off the [[Finchley Road]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stannard |first1=Martin |title=Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903-1939 |date=1989 |publisher=W W Norton & Company Incorporated |isbn=9780393306057 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/evelynwaugh00mart_0/page/24 24-5] |url=https://archive.org/details/evelynwaugh00mart_0/page/24 }}</ref> Alec Waugh was Ernest Rhys's first biographer in the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]''.<ref name="ODNB"/> Evelyn Waugh, on the other hand, came to dislike the Rhys style of family and literary entertainment, by 1920.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stannard |first1=Martin |title=Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903-1939 |date=1989 |publisher=W W Norton & Company Incorporated |isbn=9780393306057 |page=[https://archive.org/details/evelynwaugh00mart_0/page/58 58] |url=https://archive.org/details/evelynwaugh00mart_0/page/58 }}</ref>

==Works==
*''The Great Cockney Tragedy'' (1891)
*''A London Rose: and other rhymes'' (1894) poems
*''The Fiddler of Carne'' (1896) prose fable, derivative of [[Fiona Macleod]], according to Sutherland, as was ''The Whistling Maid''<ref name="Sutherland"/>
*''Welsh Ballads'' (1898) poems
*''The Whistling Maid'' (1900), historical novel set in Wales<ref name="EF"/>
*''The Man at Odds'' (1904), historical novel of smuggling on the Welsh coast<ref name="EF"/>
*''Gwenevere: Lyric Play'' (1905)
*''Lays of the Round Table'' (1905) poems
*''The Masque of the Grail'' (1908)
*''Enid: a lyric play written for music'' (1908)
*''London: The Story of the City'' (1909)
*''Lyric Poetry'' (1913) criticism
*''English Fairy Tales'' (1913) with Grace Little Rhys
*''The Leaf-Burners'' (1918) poems
*''The Growth of Political Liberty'' (1921)
*''Lost in France'' (1924) poems
*''Black Horse Pit'' (1925) short story collection, worked up from pieces originally published in ''[[The Nation and Athenaeum|The Nation]]'' and the ''[[Manchester Guardian]]''<ref>{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=John Kimberley |title=Ernest Rhys |date=1983 |publisher=University of Wales Press on behalf of the Welsh Arts Council |pages=45–6 }}</ref>
*''Everyman Remembers'' (1931) autobiography
*''Rhymes for Everyman'' (1933) poems
*''Letters from Limbo'' (1936)
*''Song of the Sun'' (1937) poems
*''Wales England Wed'' (1940) autobiography<ref name="EF"/>

==As editor==
* with [[John Gwenogvryn Evans]], ''The Text of the Bruts from the Red Book of Hergest'' (1890) editors
*''Literary Pamphlets Chiefly Relating to Poetry from Sidney to Byron'' (1897) editor
*''Lays of the Round Table and Other Lyric Romances'' (1905) editor
*''Fairy Gold: A book of Old English Fairy Tales'' (1906) editor
*''A Century of English Essays'' (1913) editor
*''The New Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics'' (1914) editor
*''Browning & His Poetry'' (1918) editor
*''The Golden Treasury of Longer Poems'' (1921) editor
*''The Growth of Political Liberty: A Source Book of English History'' (1921) editor
*''The Haunters and the Haunted: Ghost Stories and Tales of the Supernatural'' (1921) editor
*''31 Stories by Thirty and One Authors'' (1923) editor
*[https://archive.org/stream/libraryworldsbe04warngoog#page/n336/mode/2up Volume '''8'''] of ''Library of World’s Best Literature Ancient and Modern'', Thirty Volumes, edited by Charles Dudley Warner, R. S. Peale and J. A. Hill, publishers, 1897, contains a rather long section (47 pages, pp. 3403–3450), devoted comprehensively to ''Celtic literature'', written by [[William Sharp (writer)|William Sharp]] and Rhys.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Rhys,+Ernest | name=Ernest Rhys}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Ernest Percival Rhys}}
* {{Librivox author |id=13870}}
* {{LCAuth|n79065328|Ernest Rhys|88|ue}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rhys, Ernest}}
[[Category:1859 births]]
[[Category:1946 deaths]]
[[Category:Welsh book editors]]
[[Category:Anglo-Welsh poets]]

Ernest Rhys - Revision history

Ajay Kumar at 09:04, 18 September 2023