Edward Cracroft Lefroy

Edward Cracroft Lefroy.

Priest and Poet. (1855-1891)

Lefroy's mother was a niece of the novelist, Jane Austin. As a school boy his friendships were few but very close, his greatest delight being to wander afield in the woods with a chosen chum.

In 1874 Lefroy entered Keble College Oxford; he took his B.A. in 1877 and was priested in 1878.

But Lefroy's heart was weak and in 1882 he was compelled to give up his clerical work. As he set his face bravely toward the setting sun, the priest-poet wrote in his diary that his one regret would be "that I will not be able to watch the after career of the many dads in whom I have taken an interest." He died, mourned by his many friends, in 1891. He had never married.

He described himself as "a-sexual" but was romantically attracted to young boys as well as women.

• REF: from https://archive.org/stream/cu31924013515725/cu31924013515725_djvu.txt

Works

A book of poetry, Men and Boys contains several of his poems. This book will soon be available to read on-line at BoyWiki in its entirety.

See also

• Men and Boys (book), an anthology of BoyLover poetry, with author descriptions.

External links

• "Edward Cracroft Lefroy, his life and poems including a reprint of Echoes from Theocritus;" is now in the public domain, and is available, containing many OCR errors, at the following link:

https://archive.org/stream/cu31924013515725/cu31924013515725_djvu.txt

• The book is available in .PDF format at this link:

https://archive.org/download/cu31924013515725/cu31924013515725.pdf

• In .DJVU format it may be downloaded here:

https://archive.org/stream/cu31924013515725/cu31924013515725.djvu

• The book may also be downloaded at the following link:

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/imgsrv/download/pdf?id=uc2.ark%3A%2F13960%2Ft9n29x12v;orient=0;size=100

• More biographical information on Lefroy, "A Flower in Broken Leaf," may be found here, along with examples of his gay poetry:

http://rictornorton.co.uk/lefroy.htm