Across the two-culture divide spanned this Fortean.
Antony Borrow was born 1923 in Hampshire, England, in the south of that country. As with most English Forteans, I have very little information about his early life. He was of age to serve during World War II, but I have no evidence of him being in the services or doing other, related work. He worked as a biochemist, and in a letter to Eric Frank Russell noted he had achieved a B.Sc., but I do not know from where. He also had an interest in modern literature, particularly that of the fantastic and occult. In the late 1940s, he had a relationship with Eva Tucker, the novelist, and they went to poetry readings, seeing Muriel Sparks and Derek Stanford, among others. By this time, Borrow was living in London, according to official records.
In 1948, he started publishing his own little magazine, “The Glass,” a “literary magazine devoted to such forms as Fable, Fantasy, Poetry, Prose-poetry, Journals, and other genres of imaginative or introspective writing,” according to the inner front cover of the fourth issue. Tucker helped him put it together and print it on his 100-year old press, she remembered. (Among the contributors at that date were Harold Pinta, the playwright, who had not yet changed his name.) Later he was assisted by R. P Dodd and Nelson Pollard. At other times, his co-editor was Madge Hales, the poet. The publisher John Calder recollected, The Glass was “set by hand and printed on a hand-press by its eccentric editor, Antony Borrow, who was by profession a chemist, but had a real enthusiasm for new literature, a penchant for the arcane, the occult and the mythical, and who also wrote verse plays. He liked my poems and published at least two.” The Glass was published out of Suffolk, to London’s northeast.
Antony Borrow was born 1923 in Hampshire, England, in the south of that country. As with most English Forteans, I have very little information about his early life. He was of age to serve during World War II, but I have no evidence of him being in the services or doing other, related work. He worked as a biochemist, and in a letter to Eric Frank Russell noted he had achieved a B.Sc., but I do not know from where. He also had an interest in modern literature, particularly that of the fantastic and occult. In the late 1940s, he had a relationship with Eva Tucker, the novelist, and they went to poetry readings, seeing Muriel Sparks and Derek Stanford, among others. By this time, Borrow was living in London, according to official records.
In 1948, he started publishing his own little magazine, “The Glass,” a “literary magazine devoted to such forms as Fable, Fantasy, Poetry, Prose-poetry, Journals, and other genres of imaginative or introspective writing,” according to the inner front cover of the fourth issue. Tucker helped him put it together and print it on his 100-year old press, she remembered. (Among the contributors at that date were Harold Pinta, the playwright, who had not yet changed his name.) Later he was assisted by R. P Dodd and Nelson Pollard. At other times, his co-editor was Madge Hales, the poet. The publisher John Calder recollected, The Glass was “set by hand and printed on a hand-press by its eccentric editor, Antony Borrow, who was by profession a chemist, but had a real enthusiasm for new literature, a penchant for the arcane, the occult and the mythical, and who also wrote verse plays. He liked my poems and published at least two.” The Glass was published out of Suffolk, to London’s northeast.