Wason, Sandys
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Working name of Leighton Sandys Wason (1867-1950) UK editor, Church of England cleric and author. In 1892 he founded and edited The Spirit Lamp: An Oxford Magazine Without News, which was short-lived but influential. As Parish Priest of Cury and Gunwalloe in the Diocese of Truro 1905-1919, he controversially, as a declared Anglican Catholic, engaged in disputes about the use of incense in church rituals, and was deprived of his parish. Magenta Minutes: Nonsense Verse (coll 1913) contains material that inspired John Betjeman (1906-1984) to call him the greatest living writer of nonsense verse. His sf novel, Palafox (1927), with an introduction by Compton Mackenzie, depicts in a style mildly reminiscent of Ronald Firbank (1886-1926) events following upon the Invention of a thought-reading machine called the Ideoscope (see Psionics); some Satirical points are made. [JC]
Reverend Leighton Sandys Wason
born London [technically St Marylebone, Middlesex]: 31 December 1867
died Carleton, near Pontefract, Yorkshire: 15 July 1950
works
- Magenta Minutes: Nonsense Verse (London: Max Goschen, 1913) [poetry: coll: chap: hb/]
- Palafox (London: Cope and Fenwick, 1927) [hb/]
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