Rex Warner facts for kids

Rex Warner (born March 9, 1905 – died June 24, 1986) was an English writer and translator. He was also a classicist, meaning he studied ancient Greek and Roman languages and cultures. He is most famous for his novel The Aerodrome, published in 1941. A famous critic, V. S. Pritchett, once called Warner "the only outstanding novelist of ideas" of his time.

About Rex Warner's Life

Rex Warner was born Reginald Ernest Warner in Birmingham, England. He grew up mostly in Gloucestershire, where his father was a clergyman, a type of religious leader. He went to school at St. George's School and then to Wadham College, Oxford University. There, he became friends with other famous writers like W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender. After college, he taught in different places, including Egypt.

Early Writings and Beliefs

Warner's first story, "Holiday," was published in 1930. His first collection of Poems came out in 1937. One of his poems, "Arms in Spain," was a satire, which means it used humor to criticize, the support that Germany and Italy gave to the Spanish Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War.

Warner really admired the writer Franz Kafka, and Kafka's work greatly influenced Warner's own stories. Warner's first three novels showed his strong anti-fascist beliefs. This means he was against political systems like fascism, which involve a strong leader and strict control over people's lives.

For example, his novel The Wild Goose Chase is a fantasy story about people overthrowing a harsh government. His book The Professor, published around the time of the Anschluss (when Nazi Germany took over Austria), tells the story of a kind professor who tries to get along with a strict government, but it leads to his arrest and death.

Later Works and The Aerodrome

At first, Warner was interested in the Soviet Union's ideas, but he became disappointed after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. This was an agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that surprised many people.

His novel The Aerodrome is an allegorical story. This means it uses characters and events to represent deeper ideas. In the book, a young hero has to choose between his simple village life and the very organized, emotionless life of airmen. The Times newspaper called The Aerodrome Warner's "most perfectly accomplished novel."

After this, Warner wrote Why Was I Killed? (1943), which is a fantasy story with an anti-war message.

Historical Novels and Translations

Later, Warner started writing historical novels about Ancient Greece and Rome. These included Imperial Caesar, which won a special award called the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1960. Critics praised this book for being insightful and interesting.

His novel The Converts, about Saint Augustine, showed Warner's growing interest in Christianity. He dedicated this book to the Greek poet George Seferis.

War Service and Life in Greece

During the Second World War, Warner served in the Home Guard, a defense organization in the United Kingdom. He also taught Latin because there was a shortage of teachers.

From 1945 to 1947, he was the Director of the British Institute in Athens, Greece. During this time, he started translating many classical Greek and Latin books. His translation of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War for Penguin Classics was very popular, selling over a million copies. He also translated poems by George Seferis.

Warner's time in Greece happened during the early parts of the Greek Civil War. This war influenced his book "Men of Stones: A Melodrama" (1949), which describes imprisoned leftists performing a play in their prison camp.

Later Career and Retirement

In 1961, Warner became a professor at Bowdoin College in the United States. From 1962 to 1973, he was a professor at the University of Connecticut. While in the U.S., he spoke about the Vietnam War, arguing for the withdrawal of troops.

Rex Warner retired to England in 1973 and passed away in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

Rex Warner's Family Life

Rex Warner was married three times, but to two different women. He first married Frances Chamier Grove in 1929. They later divorced, and in 1949, Warner married Barbara, Lady Rothschild. After his second divorce in 1966, he remarried his first wife, Frances. Rex and Frances had three children together.

Rex Warner's Books

Novels

• The Wild Goose Chase (1937)
• The Professor (1938)
• The Aerodrome (1941)
• Why Was I Killed? (1943) (also called Return of the Traveller in the US)
• Men of Stones; A melodrama (1949)
• Escapade (1953)
• Young Caesar (1958)
• Imperial Caesar (1960)
• Pericles the Athenian (1963)
• The Converts (1967)

Collections of Poems

• Poems (1937)
• Poems and Contradictions (1945)
• New Poems 1954 (with Laurie Lee and Christopher Hassall) (1954)

Non-fiction Books

• The Kite (1936)
• We're Not Going To Do Nothing: A Reply to Mr Aldous Huxley's Pamphlet "What Are You Going to Do About It?" (1936); (with Cecil Day-Lewis)
• English Public Schools (1945)
• The Cult of Power (1946)
• John Milton (1949)
• E. M. Forster (1950, 2nd edition 1960) (with John Morris)
• Men and Gods (1950)
• Greeks and Trojans (1951)
• Views of Attica (1951)
• Eternal Greece (1953) with Martin Hürlimann
• Athens (1956) with Martin Hürlimann
• The Greek Philosophers (1958)
• Look at Birds (1962)
• The Stories of the Greeks (1967)
• Athens at War (1970) (a retelling of Thucydides' history)
• Men of Athens: The Story of Fifth-Century Athens (1972) (with photographs by Dimitrios Harissiadis)

Translations from Ancient Greek

• Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound (1947)
• Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (1954)
• Xenophon, A History of My Time and The Persian Expedition
• Plutarch, Parallel Lives (as The Fall of the Roman Republic) and Moral Essays
• Euripides, Medea (1944)
• Euripides, Helen (1958)
• Euripides, Hippolytus (1958)

Translations from Latin

• War Commentaries of Caesar (1960) (about Gallic & Civil Wars)
• The Confessions of St. Augustine (1963)

Translation from Modern Greek

• On the Greek Style: Selected Essays in Poetry and Hellenism by George Seferis, translated by Rex Warner and T. D. Frangopoulos, with an introduction by Rex Warner. (1967)

As an Editor

• The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, (1951)
• Look Up at the Skies: Poems and Prose Chosen by Rex Warner (a selection of verse by Gerard Manley Hopkins, illustrated by Yvonne Skargon) (1972)

Film and TV Adaptations

In 1983, the BBC made a TV adaptation of The Aerodrome. It was written by Robin Chapman and directed by Giles Foster. The main actors included Peter Firth as Roy, Richard Briers as the Rector, and Jill Bennett as Eustasia.

See also

In Spanish: Rex Warner para niños