Christopher Caudwell
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Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg (20 October, 1907 - February 12, 1937), British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.
He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney, south-west London. Leaving school at the age of 15, he moved with his father to Bradford and began work as a journalist for the Yorkshire Observer. He found his own way to Marxism and set about rethinking everything in light of it, from poetry to philosophy to physics.
He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in Poplar in the east end of London. In December 1936 he drove an ambulance to Spain and joined the International Brigades once there, training as a machine-gunner at Albacete before becoming a machine-gun instructor and group political delegate. He also edited a wall newspaper.
Caudwell was killed in action on 12 February 1937 during the first day of the battle of the Jarama Valley. His brother Theodore had attempted to have Caudwell recalled by the Communist Party of Great Britain by showing General-Secretary Harry Pollitt the proofs of Illusion and Reality. Pollitt's telegram recalling Caudwell from the Spanish Civil War arrived after Caudwell had been killed at Jarama.
His marxist works were published posthumously. The first was Illusion and Reality (1937), an analysis of poetry.
Works
- Illusion and Reality (1937)
- The Crisis in Physics (1939)
- Further Studies in a Dying Culture (1949)
External links
- [Christopher Caudwell Archive] at the [Marxists Internet Archive]
- [Christopher Caudwell] by Helena Sheehan
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