Novelist, born in Liscard, Merseyside, NW England, UK. He left school to go to sea and, after an 18-month journey to the East, returned to England, where he studied at Cambridge. His reputation is based on Under the Volcano (1947), a novel set in Mexico, where he lived in 19367. He also wrote Ultramarine (1933), based on his first sea voyage, and several other novels published posthumously, such as Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid (1968). He spent most of his writing years in British Columbia, Canada, but died in England, where he lived from 1954.
Malcolm Lowry (July 28, 1909 – June 26, 1957) was an English poet and novelist, best known for his novel Under the Volcano.
Biography
Lowry was born in Wallasey, in the English county of Cheshire, and was educated at The Leys School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Lowry was already well travelled, having sailed to the Far East as a deck hand on the Pyrrhus between school and university and made visits to America and Germany between terms. After Cambridge, Lowry lived briefly in London, existing on the fringes of the vibrant thirties literary scene and meeting Dylan Thomas, amongst others. It was a turbulent union, and, after an estrangement, Lowry followed her to New York (where he entered the Bellevue Hospital in 1936 following an alcohol-induced break-down) and then to Hollywood, where he tried his hand at screen writing. Though the couple travelled, to Europe, America and the Caribbean, and Lowry continued to drink heavily, this seems to have been a relatively peaceful and productive period.
Lowry died in the village of Ripe, East Sussex, where he was living with his wife.
Writings
Lowry published little during his lifetime, in comparison with the extensive collection of unfinished manuscripts he left.
Ultramarine (1933), written whilst Lowry was still an undergraduate, follows a young man's first sea voyage and his determination to gain the crew's acceptance.
A collection of short stories, Hear Us, O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place (1961) was published after Lowry's death. He also collaborated with Lowry's widow in editing the novella Lunar Caustic (1968) for re-publication. With Douglas Day, Lowry's first biographer, Lowry's widow has also completed and edited the novels Dark as the Grave Wherein my Friend is Laid (1968) and October Ferry to Gabriola (1970) from Lowry's manuscripts.
The Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, edited by his widow and Harvey Breit, was released in 1965, followed in 1995-6 by the two volume Sursam Corda! Scholarly editions of Lowry's final work in progress, La Mordida and his screen adaptation of Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night have also been issued.
In 1976 Donald Brittain and John Kramer made an Academy Award nominated documentary about him called Volcano: An Inquiry Into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry.
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