Wrey Gardiner

Who was Wrey Gardiner?

Charles Wrey Gardiner was an English writer and poet, editor and publisher, born in Plymouth.

Gardiner was a noted and well-connected literary figure, particularly in London in the years around Second World War, though very much in the tradition of the literary amateur. His importance in publishing was through editorial work for the little magazine Poetry Quarterly from 1939, continuing to 1953, and the establishment of the Grey Walls Press, in Billericay, Essex, in 1940. Lyra: An anthology of new lyric, edited by Alex Comfort and Robert Greacen, was a representative poetry anthology published by Grey Walls, containing new writing of the time. He is also notable as a supporter of Kenneth Patchen, whose Outlaw of the Lowest Planet he published in 1946, with an introduction by David Gascoyne and a preface by Alex Comfort.

His many works include Laid in Sharp Scorpions: Poems, The Gates of Silence, The Dark Thorn and A Season of Olives. He left a great deal of autobiography in manuscript.

New Road. New Directions In Art & Writing was a series of anthologies published by Grey Walls Press. These are:

⁕Volume 1 - Edited by Alex Comfort and John Bayliss - including a special 50-page surrealist section