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Myers Literary Guide:
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The North-East
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WILFRID MEYNELL (1852 - 1948) At the far end of Ellison Place in Newcastle once stood Picton Place, now demolished to make way for the motorway. Here, at Picton House, Wilfrid Meynell (then written Mennell) was born. A Catholic convert at 18, Wilfrid went on to become a considerable man of letters, editing Catholic journals, and producing articles, poems and stories, as well as a practical handbook Journals and Journalism in 1880. Nowadays his wife Alice has the greater reputation as both essayist and poet. The couple collaborated on the periodical Merry England for twelve years and on many other literary projects during their forty-five years of marriage, during which their home was a centre of Roman catholic activity. Their son, Sir Francis Meynell, founded the famous Nonesuch Press. Wilfrid's greatest service to literature is no doubt his discovery and rescue of Francis Thompson, who remained as an adopted son in the Meynell household for nineteen years. Thompson, who had studied for the catholic priesthood at Ushaw College near Durham, was by now an opium addict and living in extreme poverty in London, reduced to selling matches. He sent some poems in to Merry England and from then on the Meynells looked after him till his death from tuberculosis in 1907. 'The Hound of Heaven' referring to the pursuit of the soul by God, is one of the most anthologised poems in the language.
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