The Silk-Hat Soldier And Other Poems in War Time

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE (20 January 1866 - 15 September 1947) was a prolific English author and poet of the late 19th and early 20th century, and the father of American actress Eva Le Gallienne (1899-1991). He was born Richard Thomas Gallienne in Liverpool and began his career in an accountant’s office, but abandoned this job to become a professional writer. His book, My Ladies’ Sonnets, appeared in 1887, and in 1889 he became, for a brief time, literary secretary to famous playwright Wilson Barrett. He joined the staff of the newspaper The Star in 1891, and wrote for various papers by the name Logroller. He contributed to The Yellow Book, and associated with the Rhymers’ Club. After his second wife, Danish journalist Julie Norregard, left him in 1903 and took their daughter Eva to live in Paris, Le Gallienne became a resident of the United States. He then lived in Paris from the late 1920s with his third wife, Irma Perry, and there wrote a regular newspaper column. During the 1940s he lived in Menton on the French Riviera and, during the Second World War, was prevented from returning to his Menton home when it was occupied by German troops. He went to live in Monaco for the rest of the war, managing to salvage his library by appealing to a German officer there who allowed him to return to Menton to collect his books. Le Gallienne died in 1947 aged 81 and is buried in Menton. CHARLES HANSON TOWNE (1877-1949) was an author, editor and popular New York celebrity. From 1924 to 1929 he edited many magazines including Smart Set, Delineator, Designer, McClure’s, and Harper’s Bazaar. He also wrote poetry, novels, plays, travel essays, song cycles, lyrics for musicals and operettas, memoirs, and newspaper columns; taught poetry at Columbia University; and toured with the Broadway hit, Life With Father. Much of his writing celebrated New York City and he was considered to be the quintessential New Yorker.