Ida Affleck Graves

 

Ida Affleck Graves

(1902  –  1999)

 

 

 

For the final nine years of her life, I was a friend and amanuensis to Ida Affleck Graves.

 

Leonard Woolf  published The China Cupboard, her first book of poems, in 1929, (Hogarth Living Poets Series, No. 5) and when I met her she was still writing poetry.

 

She had also published Epithalamion With engravings by Blair Hughes-Stanton (Gemeni Press, 1936) which won the Venice Biennale 1st Prize, 1937 and Mother and Child (Fortune Press, 1946).

 

Her poems were broadcast by the B.B.C and published in many anthologies and literary periodicals including  The T.L.S. The Spectator, Life and Letters, The Saturday Review, The Observer, and The Rialto.

 

I helped her publish two final collections – A Kind Husband (O.U.P., 1994) and The Calfbearer  (O.U.P., 1999). 

 

Ida was also a novelist – “Willa, You’re Wanted” (Faber 1952) and “Elarna Cane” ( Faber 1956) – and author of children’s books – Ostrobogulous Pigs  (Faber 1952), Mouse Tash (Faber 1953), and Little Thumbamonk (Faber 1956).