The Poems of John Gray

From the dust jacket of the print edition published in 1988:John Henry Gray (1866-1934) is best remembered as the possible original of Oscar Wilde’s famous fable |The Picture of Dorian Gray|. But Gray was himself poet, short story writer, novelist and translator of some distinction as well as an exquisite, a working class dandy, not to mention a person of singular personal beauty. His poetry and prose have recently begun to attract attention beyond a small circle. Such critics as Geoffrey Grigson, Bernard Bergonzi, Ruth Z. Temple and Isobel Murray have praised his work, while the devoted labor of Father Brocard Sewell on Gray’s biography has also assisted in once more bringing this gifted and attractive figure to presence. One reason for such a delayed fame is that much of Gray’s verse was published in severely limited editions or remains fugitive. As a consequence, his work is not merely difficult to obtain, but it is impossible to see whole: that is until now. In |The Poems of John Gray|, Professor Fletcher, an authority on 1890s scholarship, has assiduously collected all of Gray’s original verse and translation, with the exception of his version of Nietzsche. The book contains Fletcher’s inimitable introduction to Gray and his work, the poems, as well as detailed notes to the verse.