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1924-2007
Novelist and biographer. Kenneth Philip Callow was born on 26 October 1924 in Stetchford, Birmingham, the son of a clerk and upholsterer. The family moved to Coventry, his mother's home town, and Philip attended Broadway School and Coventry Technical College. At the age of 15 he took up the trade of toolmaker and was accepted as an apprentice at the Coventry Gauge and Tool Company. During the war he lived at Leamington Spa, later moving to Nottingham and then Plymouth, where his parents had retired. In his forties a teacher training course at St. Luke's College, Exeter, allowed him to pursue a career of teaching creative writing in a variety of colleges. From 1980 to 1986 he was was writer-in-residence at Sheffield Polytechnic. Philip Callow was married twice and had one daughter. He divorced in 1970 but re-married seven years later. He died on 22 September 2007.
Philip Callow is probably best known for his trilogy of novels about his roots in the Midlands, Going to the moon (1968), The bliss body (1969) and Flesh of the morning (1971). He was able to take his early experiences of working class life and society and weave interesting and involving stories. His early novel, The hosanna man (1956), telling of a young man's struggles as both novelist and writer, had shown early promise writing in this vein and about this region. Unfortunately it presented an early setback to his career as it had to be withdrawn from sale after threat of libel action from a Nottingham bookseller.
He successfully embraced the writing of biography, including several devoted to one of his favourite authors, D.H. Lawrence. In his later years Philip Callow concentrated on poetry, helped by a Royal Literary Fund pension.
The following novels are available in the West Midlands Creative Literature
Collection:-
Pledge for the earth (1960)
Clipped wings (1964)
The story of my desire (1976)
Janine (1977)
Another flesh (1989) [omnibus containing Going to the
Moon, The bliss body and Flesh of morning]
The Hosanna Man (1956)
Common People (1958)
Native Ground (1959)
Turning point (1964)
Yours (1972)
The Painter's Confession (1989)
Some Love (1991)
The Magnolia (1994)
Black Rainbow (1998)
Son and lover; the young D.H. Lawrence (1975)
Lost earth; a life of Cezanne (1995)
Chekhov; the hidden ground (1998)
Passage from home; a memoir (2002)
Body of truth, D.H. Lawrence: the nomadic years, 1919-1930
(2003)
Page created 11 October 2007
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