J. S. Collis, An Irishman’s England

Abstract

John Stewart Collis’s (1900–1984) memories of his Dublin childhood differed markedly from those of his twin brother Robert, author of The Silver Fleece. Whereas the latter was showered with maternal devotion, John was shunned by his mother from the moment of his birth. So deep was his unhappiness that he admits in Bound Upon a Course (1971) to having no adult memory of his life before the age of nine. After Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford — to which he said he gained entry by cheating at Latin — Collis entered theological college in 1923 but left after one term. Two years later he published a critically well-received study of Shaw but was unable to repeat this success with subsequent works. By the time he came to write An Irishman’s England Collis was married with two children and eking out a precarious living from freelance journalism and part-time teaching in London. The early 1940s marked a turning-point in his career, however. Periods spent as a farm labourer in Sussex and Dorset led to the publication of two books, While Following the Plough (1946) and Down to Earth (1947), which were acclaimed for their blend of scientific curiosity, philosophical gravitas and poetic vision. Though he later published respected biographies of, among others, Strindberg and Tolstoy, it was these two works — published in a single volume, The Worm Forgives the Plough, in 1973 — that brought Collis belated recognition as a precursor of the ecological movement, and led A. N. Wilson to eulogise him as ‘a man who combined the irony of Shaw, the eye of Kilvert and the vigour of Cobbett’.¹

(London: Cassell, 1937). 228pp.; pp. 45–9.