Fun Facts Friday: John Crowe Ransom

John Crowe Ransom (30 April, 1888 – 3 July, 1974) was a poet, editor, essayist, critic and educator from Pulaski, Tennessee.

Books by John Crowe Ransom*

1. Born in Pulaski, TN as one of four siblings (two sisters, and one brother). His father was a Methodist minister.
2. Mr. Ransom was home schooled until he was 10, from then he went to public school and entered Vanderbilt University in Nashville at the age of 15.
   He graduated first in his class.
3. After taking a break from school for two years to teach middle school, Mr. Ransom was selected as a Rhodes Scholar, and attended Christ Church, Oxford.
4. During World War I, Mr. Ransom served as an artillery officer in France.
5. After the war he founded the Fugitives, a Southern literary group / poetry workshop of 16 writers.
6. He and 11 other poets were the Southern Agrarians, who believed that the South needs to return to pre Civil War Southern agricultural model to solve its economic and cultural issues, ironically believing that industry was dehumanizing.
7. By the late 1930s Mr. Ransom was already distancing himself from the Southern Agrarians, and by 1945 he was publicly criticizing the group.
8. As a faculty member at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio he founded the Kenyon Review and was its editor until he retired.
9. In 1966 Mr. Ransom was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
10. In 1964  his book Selected Poems received the National Book Award.

Books by John Crowe Ransom*

Zohar – Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affiliate account