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Henry Treece
Henry Treece (22 December 1911 - 10 June 1966) was a British poet and writer who also worked as a teacher and editor. He wrote a range of works, but is best remembered as a writer ...view moreHenry Treece (22 December 1911 - 10 June 1966) was a British poet and writer who also worked as a teacher and editor. He wrote a range of works, but is best remembered as a writer of children’s historical novels.
He was born in Wednesbury, Staffordshire and educated at its Grammar School. After graduating from the University of Birmingham in 1933, he went into teaching with his first placement being at Tynemouth School. In 1939 he married Mary Woodman and settled in Lincolnshire as a teacher at Barton-upon-Humber Grammar School. Their son, Richard Treece, became a musician with Help Yourself and other rock bands.
Treece served as an intelligence officer in the RAF during World War II, before turning to writing full-time. His verse appeared in a number of anthologies, including A New Romantic Anthology (1949, with Stefan Schimanski) and issues of Kingdom Come: The Magazine of War-Time Oxford (with Stefan Schimanski and Alan Rook). He edited issues of the magazines Transformation, as well as War-Time Harvest. How I See Apocalypse (1946). He also published five volumes of poetry: 38 Poems (1940); Invitation and Warning (1942); The Black Seasons (1945); The Haunted Garden (1947); and The Exiles (1952).
From 1952 he devoted himself to both juvenile and adult fiction, earning critical acclaim for a cycle of novels on prehistoric Britain, such as The Dark Island (1952), The Great Captains (1956), The Golden Strangers (1956) and Red Queen, White Queen (1958).
Treece visited the United States in the 1950s to lecture and to review plays for the Manchester Guardian. His play Carnival King was produced at Nottingham Playhouse in 1953. He also worked as a radio broadcaster.
Treece died from a heart attack in 1966, aged 54.view less