Edward Harold Physick (20 July 1878 – 30 August 1972) was an English writer, known chiefly as a critic and authority onJohn Milton; also, apoet andfantasy writer.[1] He was credited asE. H. Visiak by 1909.[2][3]
He was born inEaling,London, the son of Edward Joseph Physick, who married in 1877 Maude Searcy, daughter of John Searcy.[4][5] His grandfather Edward James Physick (1829–1906) was a sculptor, and secretary of the CongregationalistPaddington Chapel;[6] the sculpture business was taken over on his death by Edward Joseph and another of the sons.[7]William Henry Helm, writer and critic, who married in 1881 Ada Emmeline Physick, the youngest daughter, was his maternal uncle.[8][9]
DuringWorld War I the poetry he wrote, as Visiak, in opposition to it, cost him his job. When conscription was introduced, he became aconscientious objector. He spent some time as an agricultural labourer, and then taught in a preparatory school.[10] He published a poem in 1917 inThe Ploughshare, the journal of the Socialist Quaker Society, edited by William Loftus Hare, and Hubert W. Peet, another conscientious objector.[11][12]
Visiak's father died in 1921, and he then lived with and cared for his mother.[4] In 1923 he was running a boys' preparatory school, Ascham House, inBrondesbury, with A. J. Welch.[13] They moved toHove inWorld War II; she died in 1952 at age 98.[4]
Around 1967, whenColin Wilson wrote to him aboutVoyage to Arcturus, Visiak was in a nursing home.[14] The summer 1967 issue of theAylesford Review was a "Homage to E. H. Visiak". Contributors included the poetKenneth Hopkins (1914–1988) and Wilson.[15] At the end of his life, in 1971, Visiak published a poem in theADAM International Review edited byMiron Grindea.[16]
Taking on the pseudonym Visiak, he contributed poetry toThe New Age. He was among the broad-based group of writers in theNew Age who followedMary Gawthorpe's lead and contributed toDora Marsden'sFreewoman in 1911–2.[17] His poetry appeared "all over" the magazine, according to Bruce Clarke, who considers it "undistinguished". It was noted byRebecca West, as from the only other literary contributor.[18]
During the 1930s Visiak's poetry was published inEdwardian Poetry andNeo-Georgian Poetry edited byJohn Gawsworth.[19] He collaborated on short stories, with Gawsworth in particular. A friend of and enthusiast for the Scottish novelistDavid Lindsay, he provided an introductory note for Lindsay's novelA Voyage to Arcturus. He wrote three short macabre novels of his own,The Haunted Island,Medusa andThe Shadow, and theautobiographyLife's Morning Hour.The Shadow was incorporated in Gawsworth's anthologyCrimes, Creeps and Thrills (1936), which also included Visiak's story "Medusan Madness".
Buccaneer Ballads (1910). Published byElkin Mathews, it had an introduction byJohn Masefield, and a frontispiece by Violet Helm, daughter of William Henry Helm.[20][21]
The Haunted Island (1910, 1st edition Elkin Mathews, reprint Peter Lund, 1946)). It features the adventures of Francis and Dick Clayton in the 17th century, who sail a seized ship to one of theJuan Fernández Islands. They there fall into the hands of pirates, meet a ghost, and a wizard who rules over a colony of slaves. Ultimately they find a treasure.
The War of the Schools (1912) with C. V. Hawkins[26][27]
Milton's Lament for Damon and his other Latin poems (1935; withWalter W. Skeat)
Richards' Shilling Selections from Edwardian Poets (1936)
Milton: Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, with English Metrical Translations of the Latin, Greek and Italian Poems (1938, later edition 1952). Nonesuch Press, foreword byArnold Wilson.[30]
His novelMedusa: A Story of Mystery (1929) became popular in the 1960s. Mike Ashley describesMedusa as Visiak's "premier achievement".[1]Medusa was also included by horror historian Robert S. Hadji in his list of "unjustly neglected" horror novels.[31] An essay on the novel byKarl Edward Wagner appears in the anthologyHorror: 100 Best Books (1988; revised edition 1992).China Miéville has also expressed admiration for Visiak's work.[32]
Harrison-Barbet, Anthony (Introduction byColin Wilson).E. H. Visiak: Writer and Mystic (2007), Nottingham, England: Paupers' PressISBN978-0-946650-92-7
^ab"Visiak, E(dward) H(arold),"Mike Ashley inDavid Pringle,St. James guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers. London : St. James Press, 1998,ISBN1558622063 (pp. 611–12).
