A. S. T. Fisher

A. S. T. Fisher
Born 1906
Died 1989
Pen name Michael Scarrott
Occupation clergyman, writer, poet, novelist
Nationality British
Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford

Arthur Stanley Theodore Fisher (1906 - 1989)[1] was a mid-20th-century Church of England priest and writer. He wrote a number of poems, religious works and local histories as A. S. T. Fisher and one novel under the pseudonym Michael Scarrott.

Family

Fisher was the son of Reverend Arthur Bryan Fisher (1870–1955),[2] a Church of England priest who was a Church Missionary Society missionary in the Uganda Protectorate.[3] Fisher was married and had a daughter.[4]

Education

Fisher studied at Christ Church, Oxford, where he lived on the same stair as W. H. Auden.[5] The two students had frequent late-night arguments about religion,[6] and in 1925 Fisher reintroduced Auden to Christopher Isherwood.[7] In 1926 Auden's mother Constance was concerned about her son, so Fisher wrote to her "the fact that he is naturally more self-sufficient than most people explains why he finds so little need for a personal God – or for a Mother".[5][6]

In 1928 the journal Oxford Poetry published three of Fisher's poems.[6]

Career

By early 1934[8] Fisher was chaplain of the recently founded Bryanston School, a public school in Dorset,[4] but he had left by February 1935.[9] By 1952 he was chaplain of Magdalen College School, Oxford,[2] and by 1970 he was Vicar of Westwell, Oxfordshire.[10]

Fisher wrote books of prayers and other Christian matters, poems, and later three histories of parishes in West Oxfordshire. Longman published his An Anthology of Prayers Compiled for use in School and Home in 1934 and republished it a number of times from 1943 to 1959. Under the pseudonym of Michael Scarrott, Fisher wrote a gay novel set in a fictitious Dorset public school, which Reginald Caton's Fortune Press published in 1955.[5] The novel was illustrated by Fisher's son-in-law, B.H. (Barry) Surie.[4]

Works

As A. S. T. Fisher

As Michael Scarrott

References

  1. ↑ Library of Congress. Retrieved 9 July 2013
  2. 1 2 Gray, Sir John Milner (September 1952). "Acholi History, 1860–1901—III". The Uganda Journal (The Uganda Society) 16 (2): 144. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  3. ↑ "Papers of Rev. A. B. Fisher". Mundus. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 James, Callum (28 November 2012). "More on Ambassador of Loss, Michael Scarrott, A. S. T. Fisher and B. H. Surie". Front Free Endpaper. Blogspot. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 James, Callum (10 September 2012). "Ambassador of Loss by Michael Scarrott". Front Free Endpaper. Blogspot. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 "Consolidated index". Oxford Poetry. Graham Nelson. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  7. ↑ "W. H. Auden". Helensburgh Heroes. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  8. ↑ "Recommended by the Bishop of London for reading during Lent, 1934" (PDF) XXXV. The Journal of Theological Studies. endpaper. Retrieved June 2013.
  9. ↑ Jones, Brian (16 February 1935). "The New Deal in Education". The West Australian. National Library of Australia. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  10. ↑ Chipperfield, John (7 June 2010). "The Changing Face of Kingham". Oxford Mail (Newsquest Oxfordshire). Retrieved 28 June 2013.
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