Stephen Spender papers

Stephen Spender (1909-1995) was a British poet, writer and literary critic considered one of the preeminent British writers of the 1930s alongside W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, and C. Day-Lewis. Born in London, Spender attended Oxford University, where he met classmates Auden and Day-Lewis. Spender’s prominent works include the 1938 play, “Trial of a Judge,” and his 1951 autobiography, World Within World. Spender was co-editor of Horizon magazine and of the political and literary journal Encounter.

Spender worked as a lecturer and professor in the United States for many years. From 1965-1966, Spender served as the first non-American poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. In 1970 he was a visiting professor at Trinity College, Hartford, where he led a poetry workshop and taught a course, “Twentieth Century Literature: Modernism.”

Spender was married briefly to Inez Pearn (1936-1939) and then to Natasha Litvin, with whom he had two children. In 1969 he was awarded honorary membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was knighted by the British crown in 1983 for his service to literature. Additionally, Spender was known as a supporter of young, struggling writers and as the chief founder of the Writers and Scholars International and its journal Index on Censorship, both committed to the assistance of writers with their right to free expression.