Partner Philip
Trower
Queer Places:
Cley next the Sea, Holt NR25 7RN, UK
Harvard University (Ivy League), 2 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Terry Dunstan Thompson was born in New
London, Conn., Aug. 30, 1918, the only son of Terry B. Thompson, a Naval
officer, and Virginia Leita Thompson. Raised in a devout Catholic family,
Thompson was educated at a variety of Catholic schools before entering Harvard
in 1936. During his three years at Harvard, Thompson began exploring his
vocation as a writer, especially as a poet; during this time Thompson
experienced a loss of faith and left the Catholic Church and, at the same
time, embarked on a homosexual lifestyle.
After leaving Harvard, without graduating,
Thompson lived mainly in New York until he was drafted into the Army in 1942.
During his time in New York, he edited, along with Harry Brown, a short-lived
literary magazine entitled, Vice versa. In October, 1943, Thompson was posted
to England and quickly met the leading literary figures of war-time London,
inlcuding T.S. Eliot,
John Lehmann,
Cyril Connolly, the Sitwells, and
Stephen Spender. During this year,
Thompson published his first volume of poetry, Poems, to overall positive
American reviews.
Thompson's first book was followed by a
second book of poetry, Lament for the sleepwalker (1947), a travel book, The
phoenix in the desert (1951), and a novel, The dove with the bough of olive
(1954), a posthumous collection of poetry, Poems, 1950-1974, was published in
1984. After World War II, Thompson settled in England, to live in a small
Norfolk town, Cley-Next-the-Sea, with Philip
Trower, a fellow writer and artist. In 1952, after several years of
drawing closer to the faith of his childhood, Thompson returned to the
Catholic Church, and thereafter lived a platonic life of friendship with
Philip Trower, until Thompson's death on Jan. 19, 1975, from complications of
liver cancer.
My published books:
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- From the description of Papers of Dunstan Thompson, 1865-2009 (bulk 1918-2008). (Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens).