John Lindsay , FRSL (20 October 1900 – 8 March 1990) was an Australian-born writer. He was born in Melbourne, but spent his formative years in Brisbane. He was the eldest son of Norman Lindsay and brother of author Philip Lindsay.
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Early life
John Lindsay was born on 20 October 1900 in Melbourne, Colony of Victoria. He was educated at Brisbane Grammar School and the University of Queensland under J. L. Michie, from which he graduated with first class honours in Greek and Latin. On 27 October 1922 at the district registrar's office, Waverton, he married Janet Beaton, granddaughter of W. B. Dalley. He started his literary career in 1923 as a poet with a book Fauns and Ladies, illustrated by his father. In the 1920s he contributed stories and poems to a popular weekly magazine, The Bulletin, as well as editing the literary magazines Vision (with his father Norman) and London Aphrodite.
Lindsay founded, with P. R. Stephensen and John Kirtley, the Fanfrolico Press for fine publishing, initially in North Sydney. He left Australia in 1926, never to return.
In the UK
Lindsay and P. R. Stephensen established two short-lived magazines, Vision and The London Aphrodite, which were published by the Fanfrolico Press in the 1920s. In the 1930s, the Fanfrolico Press ceased as a business. Lindsay later described that experience in the autobiographical work Fanfrolico and After (1962). He moved to the left politically, writing for Left Review and joining the Communist Party of Great Britain at the end of the decade, becoming an activist.
While living in Cornwall, Lindsay started writing novels, with his earliest ones set in Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire; they included Cressida's First Lover (1931), Rome For Sale, and Caesar Is Dead (both 1934). Lindsay's historical fiction also includes 1649: A Novel of a Year (1938), a social realist work that begins with the execution of Charles I of England and explores the first year of the Republic through the eyes of ordinary citizens. He wrote it as an anti-fascist novel. He collaborated with Edgell Rickword amongst others. In 1937, Lindsay's poem On Guard for Spain: A Poem for Mass Recitation was first staged by London's Unity Theatre before going on to be performed across Britain as part of the movement in support of the Spanish Republic. He wrote extra stanzas at Unity's request.
During World War II, Lindsay served in the British Army initially in the Royal Signal Corps. From 1943, he worked for the War Office on theatrical scripts. That year, he began an affair with the actor and activist Ann Davies which was announced as a marriage although Lindsay was still married. Ann was popularly known as Ann Lindsay. Ann died in 1954.
After the war Lindsay lived in Castle Hedingham, becoming the subject of defamation and suppression because of his Communist standpoint. Being a prolific writer, he published 169 books including 38 novels and 25 volumes of translations (from Latin, Greek, Russian, and Polish), as well as art, literary, classical, historical and political studies, biographies and autobiographies written from a Marxist perspective.
Lindsay was a vegetarian for all his adult life.
Awards
Lindsay was awarded the Soviet Order of the Badge of Honour in 1967, and an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Queensland in 1973. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1946), the Australian Academy of the Humanities (1982), and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (1981).
Works
Fanfrolico Press books, as translator, author or editor
Lysistrata by Aristophanes (1925). Illustrated by Norman Lindsay
The Mimiambs of Herodas (1929). Translated by Jack Lindsay, Decorated by Alan Odle, with a foreword by Brian Penton.
A Defence of Women for their Inconstancy & their Paintings by Jack Donne (1925)
The Passionate Neatherd. A lyric sequence (1926)
Marino Faliero (1927). Drama
William Blake; Creative Will and the Poetic Image (1927)
The Metamorphosis of Aiax by Sir John Harington (1927). Editor with Peter Warlock
Propertius in Love (1927) translator
Loving Mad Tom: Bedlamite Verses of the XVI and XVII Centuries (1927). Illustrations by Norman Lindsay
Helen comes of age. Three Plays (1927)
The Complete Works of Gaius Petronius Done into English By Jack Lindsay with one Hundred Illustrations by Norman Lindsay; Comprising the Satyricon and Poems (1927, privately printed for sale to subscribers only)
The Parlement of Pratlers by John Eliot (1928). Editor, illustrated by Hal Collins
Homage to Sappho (1928)
Inspirations. An anthology of utterances by Creative Minds defining the creative act and its lyrical basis in life (1928). Editor
To 1929
Fauns and Ladies (1923). Poems
Poetical Sketches by William Blake. With an Essay on Blake's Metric by Jack Lindsay. (Scholartis Press 1927)
The Modern Consciousness: An Essay Towards an Integration (1928)
I See the Earth: Poems by Elza De Locre, Illustrated by Peter Meadows (pseudonym for Jack Lindsay), (Scholartis Press 1928)
1930–1939
Cressida's First Lover (1931)
The Complete Works of Gaius Petronius (Rarity Press, 1932). Translator, illustrated by Norman Lindsay
The Golden Ass. (The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Limited Editions Club, 1932). Translator, illustrated by Percival Goodman
Medieval Latin Poets (1934)
I am a Roman (1934)
Rome for Sale (1934)
Caesar is Dead (1934)
Last Days With Cleopatra (1935)
Despoiling Venus (1935)
Storm at Sea (Golden Cockerel Press, 1935). Illustrated by John Farleigh
The Romans (1935). Illustrated by Pearl Binder
Runaway (1935). Illustrated by J Morton Sale
Who Are the English? (1936). Poem
Come Home at Last (1936). Short stories
Adam of a New World (1936). A novel about Giordano Bruno
Wanderings of Wenamem 1115-1114 B.C (1936). Novel
Rebels of the Gold Fields (1936)
On Guard for Spain (1937) Poem
John Bunyan: Maker of Myths (1937)
The Anatomy of Spirit: An Inquiry into the Origins of Religious Emotion (1937)
1940–1949
Giuliano the Magnificent (1940). Editor, Dorothy Johnson
Hannibal Takes a Hand (1941)
The Stormy Violence (1941)
Light in Italy (1941)
Socialist Russia? (c.1941)
We Shall Return; a Novel of Dunkirk and the French Campaign (1942)
Into Action: the Battle of Dieppe (1942). Poem
The Dons Sight Devon (1942)
Beyond Terror (1943). Novel
Perspective for Poetry (Fore Publications, 1944). Pamphlet, Key Essays No. 1
Second Front (1944). Poems
The Whole Armour of God (1944). Drama
Robin of England (1944). Drama
Marxism and Contemporary Science: or The Fullness of Life (1944)
The Barriers Are Down (1945)
Hullo Stranger (1945)
New Lyrical Ballads (1945). Anthology, editor
Jolly Swagman The Australians at Home Current Affairs No 91 (1945)
British Achievement in Art and Music (1945)
Time to Live (1946). Novel
1950–1959
Three Letters to Nikolai Tikhonov (1950, Fore Publications Key Poets No. 7). Poems
Paintings and Drawings By Leslie Hurry (Grey Walls Press 1950). Introduction
Charles Dickens (1950)
A World Ahead (Fore Publications, 1950). ravel to the USSR 1949
Fires in Smithfield – a novel of Mary Tudor's Reign (1950)
Peace is our answer. Poems. With further prefactory poems by P. Eluard, P. Neruda, L. Aragon and a Foreword by J.G. Crowther. Linocuts by Noel Counihan (1950)
The Passionate Pastoral: An 18th Century Escapade (1951) novel
The USA Threat to British Culture - Special edition of ARENA No.8, June/July 1951. Editor
Byzantium into Europe (1952)
Rising Tide (1953). Illustrated by James Boswell
Betrayed Spring: a novel of the British way(1953)
Rumanian Summer: A View of the Rumanian People's Republic (1953) with Maurice Cornforth
Civil War in England (1954)
The Moment of Choice (1955)
George Meredith: his Life and Work (1956)
The Romans Were Here - The Roman Period In Britain And Its Place In Our History (1956)
1960–1969
Death of the Hero: French Painting from David to Delacroix (1960)
The Satyricon (1960). Translator
Modern Russian Poetry (1960). Editor and translator
The Roaring Twenties – Literary Life in Sydney, New South Wales in the Years 1921–1926 (1960). Autobiography (ii)
The Writing on the Wall: An Account of the Last Days of Pompeii (1960)
The Revolt of the Sons (1960)
The Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius (1960). Translator
William Morris – Writer (1961)
Ribaldry of Greece (1961). Editor
Ribaldry of Rome (1961). Editor
All on the Never Never (1961). Novel (filmed in 1962 as Live Now, Pay Later)
Our Celtic Heritage (1962)
Fanfrolico and After (1962). Autobiography (iii)
Cause, Principle, and Unity: 5 Dialogues by Giordano Bruno (1962)
Masks and Faces (1963) novel
Daily Life in Roman Egypt (1963)
The Way the Ball Bounces (1964) novel
Choice of Times (1964) novel
Nine Days' Hero; Wat Tyler (1964)
1970–1979
The Autobiography of Joseph Priestley (1970). Editor
The Question of Totemism reopened (1970). Pamphlet
The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt (1970)
Cleopatra (1971)
Origins of Astrology (1972)
Gustave Courbet: His Life and Art (1972)
The Normans and Their World (1973)
Blast-Power & Ballistics Concepts of Force and Energy in the Ancient World (1974)
Helen of Troy, Woman and Goddess (1974)
Faces & Places (1974). Illustrated by Norman Lindsay
Death of a Spartan King and two other stories of the Ancient World (Inca Books, 1974). Illustrated by Noel Counihan
Decay and Renewal. Critical Essays on Twentieth Century Writing (1976)
The Troubadours and Their World (1976)
Hogarth; His Art and His World (1977)
The Monster City: Defoe's London 1688–1730 (1978)
William Blake: His Life and Work (1978)
William Morris (1979)
War Or Peace. Twelve linocuts by Noel Counihan. Poems by Jack Lindsay (1979)
1980–1991
Collected Poems (Chiron Press, 1981)
The Crisis In Marxism (1981)
Thomas Gainsborough: His Life and Art (1981)
Trinity: Music, Poems and Drawings by Jack Lindsay (1982)
The Blood Vote (publ. 1985, written 1937). Novel
The Mandrake Press 1929–30 (1985). Catalogue introduction
William Morris, Dreamer of Dreams (Nine Elms Press, 1991). Essay
New Lyrical Ballads (1945)
Edited by Lindsay, Honor Arundel and Maurice Carpenter. Poets included were:
Dai Alexander – Honor Arundel – John Atkins – Maurice Carpenter – Herbert Corby – Leslie Daiken – Idris Davies – Tom Farnol – Alun Lewis – Jack Lindsay – John Manifold – Geoffrey Matthews – David Martin – Frances Mayo – Hubert Nicholson – Harold W. Owen – Paul Potts – John Pudney – Arnold Rattenbury – M. Richardson – Joyce Rowe – Francis Scarfe – John Singe – Randall Swingler – Mike Whittock