Harry Graham (poet)
Encyclopedia
Jocelyn Henry Clive 'Harry' Graham (23 December 1874 – 30 October 1936) was an English writer. He was a successful journalist and later, after distinguished military service, a leading lyricist for operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s and musical comedies
Edwardian Musical Comedy
Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...
, but he is now best remembered as a writer of humorous verse in the tradition of grotesquerie and black humour exemplified by the verses of W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
and Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...
.
Family and education
Graham was the second son of Sir Henry Graham, KCB (1842–1930), Clerk of the ParliamentsClerk of the Parliaments
The Clerk of the Parliaments is the chief clerk of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The position has existed since at least 1315, and duties include preparing the minutes of Lords proceedings, advising on proper parliamentary procedure and pronouncing the Royal Assent...
, and his first wife, Lady Edith Elizabeth Gathorne-Hardy, who died two weeks after Harry's birth. Graham's elder brother Ronald entered the diplomatic service, becoming Ambassador to Italy (1921-33). Graham was educated at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...
.
Military career
Graham joined the Coldstream GuardsColdstream Guards
Her Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....
in 1893, and from 1898 to 1901 and again in 1902-1904 he served as aide-de-camp
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
to Lord Minto
Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto
Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto was a British nobleman and politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the eighth since Canadian Confederation, and as Viceroy and Governor-General of India, the country's 17th.-Early life and career:Minto was born in London, the...
, Governor-General of Canada. In the intervening year, he served in the Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
. Graham kept a journal of his trip across Canada with Minto to the Klondike Gold Rush
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush and the Last Great Gold Rush, was an attempt by an estimated 100,000 people to travel to the Klondike region the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1897 and 1899 in the hope of successfully prospecting for gold...
in the Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
in 1900, called Across Canada to the Klondyke, which he later presented to Minto, and which was eventually published. Graham retired from the army in 1904, and became private secretary to the former Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery
Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, KG, PC was a British Liberal statesman and Prime Minister. Between the death of his father, in 1851, and the death of his grandfather, the 4th Earl, in 1868, he was known by the courtesy title of Lord Dalmeny.Rosebery was a Liberal Imperialist who...
, 1904–06.
On the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in 1914, Graham rejoined the Coldstream Guards and served in France in the 40th and 5th divisions.
Marriage and later life
Graham was engaged to Ethel BarrymoreEthel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
, but they did not marry. He married Dorothy Villiers in 1910, and they had a daughter, Virginia Graham (1910–1993), who followed him as a writer, contributing many articles to Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
.
Graham died of cancer in London in 1936, aged 61. A memorial service for him was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields
St Martin-in-the-Fields is an Anglican church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Its patron is Saint Martin of Tours.-Roman era:Excavations at the site in 2006 led to the discovery of a grave dated about 410...
.
Light verse
His first published works appeared during his military career. In 1906, he became a full-time writer, as a journalist and author of light verse, popular fiction and history, including A Group of Scottish Women (1908).Graham is best remembered for his series of cheerfully cruel Ruthless Rhymes, first published in 1898 under the pseudonym Col. D. Streamer, a reference to his regiment
Coldstream Guards
Her Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....
. These were described by The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, in an editorial that compared him to Edward Lear
Edward Lear
Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
, Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
and W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
, as "that enchanted world where there are no values nor standards of conduct or feeling, and where the plainest sense is the plainest nonsense". The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography also compares his verse with that of W. S. Gilbert and suggests that his prose was an early influence on P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
. Graham's other light verse exhibited a delight in language, and not only his native one, as in his response to the news that Wilhelm II, visiting Brussels, spoke at length with Baron de Haulleville, Director of the Congo Museum, in French, German and English: the poem began:
Guten Morgen, mon ami!
Heute ist es schönes Wetter!
Charmé de vous voir ici!
Never saw you looking better!
Graham's pleasure in word-play is also illustrated in his poem on "Poetical Economy":
When I’ve a syllable de trop,
I cut it off, without apol.:
This verbal sacrifice, I know,
May irritate the schol.;
But all must praise my dev’lish cunn.
Who realise that Time is Mon.
An example of a Ruthless Rhyme is:
Father heard his children scream
So he threw them in the stream
Saying, as he drowned the third,
"Children should be seen, not heard!"
The only comprehensive anthology of Graham's verse is When Grandmama Fell Off The Boat: The Best of Harry Graham. The latest edition was published by Sheldrake Press in 2009.
Lyricist and translator
During the war, Graham started to write lyrics for English operettas and musical comediesEdwardian Musical Comedy
Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...
, including Tina (1915), Sybil (1916), the 1917 hit operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
The Maid of the Mountains
The Maid of the Mountains
The Maid of the Mountains, called in its original score a musical play, is an operetta or musical comedy in three acts. The music was by Harold Fraser-Simson, with additional music by James W...
and A Southern Maid
A Southern Maid
A Southern Maid is an operetta in three acts composed by Harold Fraser-Simson, with a book by Dion Clayton Calthrop and Harry Graham and lyrics by Harry Graham and Harry Miller. Additional music was provided by Ivor Novello and George H. Clutsam, with additional lyrics by Adrian Ross and Douglas...
(1920), and English adaptations of European operettas such as Whirled into Happiness
Whirled into Happiness
Whirled into Happiness is a musical comedy with music by Robert Stolz, and book and lyrics by Harry Graham, adapted from Stolz's Der Tanz ins Glück, with a libretto by Robert Bodanzky and Bruno Hardt-Warden...
(1922), Madame Pompadour
Madame Pompadour (operetta)
Madame Pompadour is an operetta in three acts, composed by Leo Fall with a libretto by Rudolf Schanzer and Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Welisch. Conducted by the composer, It opened at the Berliner Theater in Berlin on September 9, 1922 and then at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on March 2,...
(1923), The Land of Smiles
The Land of Smiles
The Land of Smiles is a romantic operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár. The German language libretto was by Ludwig Herzer and Fritz Löhner. The performance time is about 100 minutes....
(1931) and many others.
His best known lyrics were "You are my heart's delight", his English version of "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz
Dein ist mein ganzes Herz
"Dein ist mein ganzes Herz" is a song from the operetta Das Land des Lächelns with music by the Hungarian composer Franz Lehar and words by Fritz Löhner-Beda and Ludwig Herzer...
", from The Land of Smiles, composed by Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár was an Austrian-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow .-Biography:...
(and made famous by the popular tenor Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang".-Early life:...
), and "Goodbye", from his English adaptation of The White Horse Inn
The White Horse Inn
Im weißen Rößl is an operetta or musical comedy set in the picturesque Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria. It is about the head waiter of the White Horse Inn in St. Wolfgang who is desperately in love with the owner of the inn, a resolute young woman who at first only has eyes for one of her...
(originally "Adieu, mein kleiner Gardeoffizier" from Robert Stolz
Robert Stolz
Robert Elisabeth Stolz was an Austrian songwriter and conductor as well as a composer of operettas and film music.- Biography :...
's operetta Die lustigen Weiber von Wien, a song which later achieved great popularity as sung by Josef Locke
Josef Locke
Josef Locke was the stage name of Joseph McLaughlin , a tenor singer who was successful in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s....
).
Published works
- 1899: Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes; words by Col. D. Streamer; illustrations by G. H. Obl. 8vo., 59 p. London: Edward Arnold (both words and drawings are by Graham)
- Little Miss Nobody (1901)
- Ballads of the Boer War (1902)
- Baby's Baedeker (1902)
- Perverted Proverbs (1903)
- Misrepresentative Men (1904)
- Fiscal Ballads (1905)
- More Misrepresentative Men (1905)
- Verse and Worse (1905)
- A Song-Garden for Children (1906)
- Misrepresentative Women (1906)
- Familiar Faces (1907)
- A Group of Scottish Women (1908)
- Deportmental Ditties (1909)
- The Mother of Parliaments (1910)
- The Bolster Book (1910)
- Lord Bellinger An Autography (1911)
- Canned Classics (1911)
- The Perfect Gentleman (1912)
- The Motley Muse (1913)
- Splendid Failures (1913)
- The Cinema Star (1914)
- The Complete Sportsman (1914)
- State Secrets (1914)
- Tina (1915)
- Sybil (1916)
- The Maid of the MountainsThe Maid of the MountainsThe Maid of the Mountains, called in its original score a musical play, is an operetta or musical comedy in three acts. The music was by Harold Fraser-Simson, with additional music by James W...
(1917) - Rhymes for Riper Years (1919)
- Biffon and His Circle (1919)
- Our Peg (1919)
- A Southern MaidA Southern MaidA Southern Maid is an operetta in three acts composed by Harold Fraser-Simson, with a book by Dion Clayton Calthrop and Harry Graham and lyrics by Harry Graham and Harry Miller. Additional music was provided by Ivor Novello and George H. Clutsam, with additional lyrics by Adrian Ross and Douglas...
(1920) - A Little Dutch Girl (1920)
- The Lady of the Rose (1921)
- Whirled into HappinessWhirled into HappinessWhirled into Happiness is a musical comedy with music by Robert Stolz, and book and lyrics by Harry Graham, adapted from Stolz's Der Tanz ins Glück, with a libretto by Robert Bodanzky and Bruno Hardt-Warden...
(1922) - Head over Heels (1923)
- Madame PompadourMadame Pompadour (operetta)Madame Pompadour is an operetta in three acts, composed by Leo Fall with a libretto by Rudolf Schanzer and Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Welisch. Conducted by the composer, It opened at the Berliner Theater in Berlin on September 9, 1922 and then at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on March 2,...
(1923) - The World we Laugh in (1924)
- Our Nell (1924)
- The Buried Cable (or Dirty Work at the Crossroads) (1924)
- Toni (1924)
- Orange Blossom (1924)
- Betty in Mayfair (1924)
- Cleopatra (1925)
- Riquette (1925)
- The Grand Duchess (1925)
- Katja the Dancer (1925)
- Clo-Clo (1925)
- The Last of the Biffins (1925)
- Merry Molly (1926)
- My Son John (1926)
- The Blue Mazurka (1926)
- Strained Relations (1926)
- Lady Mary (1928)
- By Candle Light (1928)
- The World's Workers (1928)
- Hunter's Moon (1929)
- Adams Apples (1930)
- More Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes (1930)
- The Good Companions (1931)
- Laiting in Waiting (1931)
- White Horse Inn (1931)
- The Land of SmilesThe Land of SmilesThe Land of Smiles is a romantic operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár. The German language libretto was by Ludwig Herzer and Fritz Löhner. The performance time is about 100 minutes....
(1931) - Viktoria and her HussarViktoria und ihr HusarViktoria und ihr Husar is an operetta in three acts and a prelude by Paul Abraham with a libretto by Alfred Grünwald and Fritz Löhner-Beda, based on a work by the Hungarian Emmerich Földes ....
, Palace TheatrePalace Theatre, LondonThe Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. It is an imposing red-brick building that dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus and is located near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road...
(1931) - Casanova (1932)
- Rise and Shine (1932)
- Roulette (1932)
- Doctor Orders (1932)
- The Biffin Papers (1933)
- Happy Families (1934)
- The Private Life of Gregory Gorm (1936)
Posthumous publication
- 1984: Across Canada to the KlondykeKlondike, YukonThe Klondike is a region of the Yukon in northwest Canada, east of the Alaska border. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon from the east at Dawson....
; edited and with an introduction by Frances Bowles. Toronto: Methuen ISBN 0458982407 (A travel diary)
Anthology
- 1986: When Grandmama Fell off the Boat: the best of Harry Graham inventor of ruthless rhymes; with an introduction by Miles KingtonMiles KingtonMiles Beresford Kington was a British journalist, musician and broadcaster.-Early life :...
. (Methuen Humour Classics.) London: Methuen ISBN 0413141500- --do.--1988, Harper Collins
- --do.--2009, Sheldrake Press