A. E. Coppard (Alfred Edgar Coppard) Biography

British short-story writer and poet, born in Folkestone; ill-health curtailed his education at Lewes Road School, Brighton, when he was nine. After working in a variety of commercial capacities, he became a fulltime writer in 1919, publishing his first book of stories, Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, in 1921. His many collections include Fishmonger's Fiddle (1925), Silver Circus (1928), Crotty Shinkwin (1932), You Never Know, Do You? (1939), and Fearful Pleasures (1946). Coppard viewed his work as extending the traditions of the ballad and folktale; masterful handling of rural dialogue characterizes much of his writing. His stories, which often display a compassionate concern with the lot of the misfit, combine transparent stylistic simplicity with profound imaginative analyses of human behaviour. Hips and Haws (1922), Yokohama Garland (1926), and Cherry Ripe (1935) are among the numerous volumes of his poetry, which is notable for the fluency and imagistic vividness of its free-verse forms and recurrently evokes the Elizabethan and Caroline periods. His other works include It's Me, O Lord (1957), the first volume of an unfinished autobiography.