Edwin Emmanuel Bradford - Definition

(Rev.) E(dwin) E(mmanuel) Bradford (1860-1944) was an English clergyman and Uranian poet. He attended Exeter College, Oxford, and received his B.A. 1884. He was vicar of Nordelph, Norfolk, from 1905 to 1944. Rev. Bradford's verse was outspokenly gay, but also remarkably popular during his lifetime. His work can just barely be interpreted as a sign of innocent "romantic friendship" with youths, but several verses, such as "The Bather in the Blue Grotto at Capri" and "Alan", are plainly erotically inspired. Many of his poems are direct though sometimes self-effacing pleas of love to the young males in his life. In the Reverend's own words:

Here's a loyal and a loving heart,

Take it, lad, or leave it.

Works

• Sonnets Songs & Ballads (1908)
• Passing the Love of Women and Other Peoms (1913)
• In Quest of Love and Other Poems (1913)
• Lays of Love and Life (1916)
• The New Chivalry and Other Poems (1918)
• The Romance of Youth and Other Poems (1920)
• Ralph Rawdon: a Story in Verse (1922)
• The True Aristocracy (1923)
• The Tree of Knowledge (1925)
• The Kingdom within You and Other Poems (1927)
• Strangers and Pilgrims (1929)
• Boyhood (1930)

Further Information

Bradford, Rev. E. E.; Paul Webb, ed. (1988). To Boys Unknown. London: GMP Publishers.

D'Arch Smith, Timothy (1970). Love in Earnest. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.