L.A.G. Strong

Leonard Alfred George Strong (8 March 1896 – 17 August 1958) was a popular English novelist, critic, historian and poet, and published under the name "L. A. G. Strong." He served as a director of the publishers Methuen Ltd. from 1938 to 1958.

Poet and novelist, born at Compton Gifford, Devon, of a half-Irish father and Irish mother, and was proud of his Irish heritage.^[1] As a youth, he considered being a comedian and took lessons in singing. He was educated at Brighton College and earned a scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford, as what was known as an Open Classical Scholar (studies in literature and the arts).^[3] There he came under the influence of W. B. Yeats, about whom Strong wrote fairly extensively; they met first in autumn 1919. Their friendship lasted for twenty years.

He taught at an Oxford preparatory school, before becoming a full-time writer in 1930. His first two volumes of poetry were Dublin Days (1921) and The Lowery Road (1923), and his career as a novelist was launched with Dewer Rides (1929, set on Dartmoor).

Later he formed a literary partnership with an Irish friend, John Francis Swaine (1880-1954), paying Swaine a percentage of royalties for five novels and numerous short stories, published between c.1930 and 1953, which were attributed to Strong. These included the Sea Wall (1933), The Bay (1944), and Trevannion (1948). Swaine’s short stories described the thoughts and experiences of an Irish character, Mr Mangan, a fictional version of Swaine himself. Strong wrote many works of non‐fiction and an autobiography of his early years, Green Memory (1961). He gained a wide interest in literature and wrote about many important contemporary authors, including James Joyce, William Faulkner, John Millington Synge, and John Masefield.

He worked as an Assistant Master at Summer Fields, a boys' boarding preparatory school on the outskirts of Oxford, from 1917 to 1919 and from 1920 to 1930, and as a Visiting Tutor at the Central School of Speech and Drama. One of his pupils was a son of Reginald McKenna.^[1] He was a director of the publishers Methuen Ltd. from 1938 until his death.^[4] For many years he was a governor of his old school, Brighton College. Strong's autobiography, Green Memory, published after his death, described his family (including a grandmother in Ireland), his earliest years, his school-days, and his friendships at Wadham College; among them were Yeats and George Moore.^[1]

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