John Cornford Author

Rupert John Cornford (1915 - 1936) was an English poet, communist and Charles Darwin's great-grandson. He was a member of the International Brigades and died while fighting fascism during the Spanish Civil War. Born in Cambridge, Cornford was educated at Stowe School and Trinity College. As an undergraduate he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and from 1933 was directly involved in Communist Party work in London. At the start of the Spanish Civil War he briefly served with the POUM militia and then with a machine-gun unit of the Commune de Paris Battalion, and fought in defence of Madrid. He was killed in uncertain circumstances at Lopera, near Cordoba in 1936. A memorial volume to Cornford was published in 1938. Jonathan Galassi born in Seattle, is the President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, one of the eight major publishers in New York. He is a translator and poet and his honours include a 1989 Guggenheim Fellowship and being an honorary chairman of the Academy of American Poets.