Ernest Myers

Ernest James Myers was a poet, Classicist and author.

Early Life

Ernest James Myers was born October 13th, 1844 at Keswick to Frederic Myers and Susan Harriet Myers. He studied at Balliol College Oxford and Cheltenham. He taught for three years at Wadham College, before moving to London for twenty years. While in London, Myers worked as a translator an editor, and also wed Nora Margaret Lodge, with whom he had five children.

From 1876 to 1881, he served as Secretary of the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching. Myers also worked as a volunteer for both the Charity Organization Society and the Society for Protection of Women and Children. In 1891, the Myers family left London for Chislehurst.Their elder son - who may have been the subject of Myers’ poem Infant Eyes - died as a soldier in France in 1918, the last year of World War I.

Myers maintained a love of physical exercise throughout his life, including swimming, riding, lawn tennis, walking, and golf. He died on 25 November 1921 at Etchingham, Sussex, aged 77.

Writing

Myers published poetry in The Puritans (1869), translated the Odes of Pindar (1874), followed in 1877 by a volume entitled Poems. A further, larger volume of his own poetry followed in 1880, The Defence of Rome and Other Poems, and he contributed an article on Aeschylus to a collection of Classical essays edited by Evelyn Abbott.

In 1882 he collaborated with Andrew Lang and Walter Leaf on books XVII-XXIV of Homer's Iliad (a companion volume to a translation of the Odyssey).

Further volumes of poetry followed in the coming years: The Judgement of Prometheus (1886); and Gathered Poems (1904). He also wrote Lord Althorp: a biography (1890).