A writer of many talents and of some influence during the high period of Anglo-American literary modernism, Richard Aldington achieved distinction as a novelist, poet, biographer, translator, editor, reviewer, and essayist in cultural and literary criticism. His essays characteristically offer solid reasoning animated by personal intensity and tend to gather in a wealth of observation disciplined by a love of point and lucidity. After his death in 1962 Aldington was largely forgotten--except in the USSR--for almost a generation. Since the mid 1980s there have been signs of some degree of revival of his literary reputation.

The eldest son of Albert Edward Aldington, a law clerk, and Jessie May Godfrey Aldington, Edward Godfree Aldington was born on 8 July 1892 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, but spent most of his boyhood in Dover. Early on he adopted the first name Richard. A penchant for literature and languages was evident from his earliest school years...