Dates

• Existence: 1912-1970

Biography

In 1865, Matthew Dowdy Shiell, a trader from the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean, laid claim to a mile-long rock in the island chain, named Redonda by Columbus in 1493. He declared himself king, and when his son, Matthew Phipps Shiell, was fifteen, the father had him anointed king of Redonda by the Bishop of Antigua. In the 1880s, anxious to mine its guano and phosphates, England annexed Redonda as part of Antigua. The Shiells were allowed to retain their title as monarch of the island. Matthew Phipps Shiell migrated to England where, under the name of M.P. Shiel, he wrote many books of fantasy. When he died in 1947, he left the Island of Redonda to a young poet, Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong, who wrote under the name of John Gawsworth.

Gawsworth was born in London in 1912, of Irish and Scottish descent. He liked to claim famous ancestors, among them Mary Fitton, who some claim is Shakespeare's dark lady, though many dismiss this claim. While he was still a teen, Gawsworth's mother divorced his father and moved to Canada. Since Gawsworth was not close to his father, he was essentially on his own.

He worked for a bookseller and began writing poetry seriously. By the age of 19, he had published his first collection of poetry, Confession. He admired the Georgian poets and collected their work and corresponded with some of them. His work with the bookseller made him an expert collector and he collected many first editions and signed copies of works.

He pursued a literary career, buying and selling books, editing anthologies and bibliographies, editing journals and writing and publishing his own poetry. At 26, he was the youngest person elected to the Royal Society of Literature. He won the Benson Silver Medal in Poetry in 1939.

He entered the Air Force in 1941 and served in North Africa, Italy, and India. In all of these places he sought out poets and books and wrote and published poetry. After the war, he continued to publish poetry, as well to edit journals, such as The Poetry Review.

His early career was noticed and praised by critics, but he was too formal a poet to survive modernism, and he fell into obscurity. Always a ready imbiber, his drinking increased. In 1952, he was fired as editor of The Poetry Review, and after 1953 he published no more books. By the time he was profiled on the BBC's Line-Up in 1970 he was homeless and impoverished.

As King Juan I of Redonda, he increased the court by naming peers, mostly drawn from literary ranks. These included Dorothy Sayers, John A. Knopf, Dylan Thomas, and J.B. Priestley, among a host of others, whose names he had placed on State Papers. He once offered the kingship for sale, and got many offers, but did not follow through. In his later years, on drinking larks, he named so many peers and successors that there are now at least three pretenders to the throne, and Redonda has resurfaced as a hot topic. There are several Internet sites devoted to it, and several books have come out in recent years about Redonda.

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