Gerald Gould - Life

Life

He was brought up in Norwich, and studied at University College, London and Magdalen College, Oxford. He had a position at University College from 1906, and was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford from 1909 to 1916.

From 1914 he was an official in Masterman's Wellington House Propaganda Department, which may explain his failiure to produce much poetry concerned with the War. He also worked as a journalist on the Daily Herald as one of Lansbury's Lambs — the group of idealistic young men helping with it after George Lansbury purchased it in 1913, and which included Douglas Cole, W. N. Ewer, Harold Laski, William Mellor and Francis Meynell.

It was probably Gould who brought Siegfried Sassoon to the paper as literary Editor after its relaunch in 1919. Gould regularly contributed poetry to the Herald and gave several sonnets to Millicent Fawcett's Common Cause when it became the Woman's Leader in 1920.

Gould also reviewed novels for the New Statesman, moving to The Observer as fiction editor in 1920. He was also (not coincidentally) made chief reader for Victor Gollancz Ltd., where he was involved in the early publication history of George Orwell.

His poem Wander-thirst is often quoted. Much of his poetry remains buried in the columns of newspapers and periodicals. The few collections that appeared, although well reviewed by contemporaries, are long out of print.