Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who was born in County Laois, Ireland, in 1904. After his mother died in 1906, he was brought up in London by his clergyman father, spending summer holidays with relatives in Wexford. He was educated at Sherborne School and Wadham College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1927. Blake initially worked as a teacher to supplement his income from his poetry writing and he published his first Nigel Strangeways novel, A Question of Proof, in 1935. Blake went on to write a further nineteen crime novels, all but four of which featured Nigel Strangeways, as well as numerous poetry collections and translations.
During the Second World War he worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information, which he used as the basis for the Ministry of Morale in Minute for Murder, and after the war he joined the publishers Chatto & Windus as an editor and director. He was married twice, in 1928 to Constance M King, the daughter of a master at Sherborne, and in 1951 to the actress Jill Balcon. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1968 and died in 1972 at the home of his friend, the writer Kingsley Amis.
Anglo-Irish poet (1904-1972)
Born | 1904 |
Died | 1972 |
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Anglo-Irish poet (1904-1972)
Born | 1904 |
Died | 1972 |
Subjects
Fiction, Fiction, mystery & detective, general, Nigel Strangeways (Fictitious character), Alumni and alumnae, Intellectuals, University of Oxford, Fiction, crime, Fiction in English, Large type books, Fiction, general, Anonymous letters, Detective and mystery stories, England, fiction, English Detective and mystery stories, English fiction, Mystery and detective stories, Nigel Strangeways (fictitious character), Universities and colleges, British Naval operations, Country homes, Country life, English Pastoral fiction, English Short stories, English literature, Fiction, mystery & detective, traditionalPlaces
England, 221B Baker Street, Abbey Grange, Australia, Chislehurst, Dorset, Dorset (England), New York, Scotland YardPeople
Eustace Brackenstall, Horatio Nelson Nelson Viscount (1758-1805), Jack Croker, John H. Watson, Lady Brackenstall, Sherlock Holmes, Stanley HopkinsID Numbers
- OLID: OL2471327A
- Wikidata: Q954383
- Inventaire.io: wd:Q954383
Links (outside Open Library)
Alternative names
- Cecil Day-Lewis
- C. Day-Lewis
- nicholas blake
- Nicholas Blake C. Day Lewis)
- C. Day Lewis Nicholas Blake (pseudonym)
- N. Blake
July 3, 2024 | Edited by mheiman | merge authors |
June 24, 2024 | Edited by mheiman | merge authors |
July 22, 2022 | Edited by M C W | Edited without comment. |
July 22, 2022 | Edited by M C W | Edited without comment. |
April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | initial import |