Educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford, Nichols' interest in poetry began during his school days. He was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Artillery at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 and took part in battles at Loos and the Somme. While in France he became good friends with Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke. In 1915, he published the critically acclaimed Invocation, a series of wartime poems. After serving a few weeks, he was invalided home with shell shock and returned to England in 1916. He then served the remainder of the war working for the Home Office, including tours of the United States where he read his wartime poetry to large audiences. After the war he settled in London and became a close friend of Aldous Huxley. In 1921, he was appointed Professor of English Literature at the Imperial University of Tokyo, where he remained until 1924. He then spent some time in Hollywood where he was an advisor to Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Returning once again to England, he worked for a time in the theatre and collaborated with Jim Tully on the play Twenty Below. During the 1930's he lived in Germany, Austria and France, but returned to England when France was invaded by the Nazis. Nichols is one of the 16 wartime poets commemorated at Westminster Abbey. His other works include Ardours and Endurance (1917), Aurelia (1920), Guilty Souls (1922), Fantastica (1923), Under the Yew (1928), Fisbo (1934) and Such Was My Singing (1942). |
Chrysoma Associates Limited
