Rhymer's Club

The Rhymer's Club was a group of London-based poets, founded in 1890 by W. B. Yeats and John Rhys. Originally not much more than a dining club, meeting upstairs at the Cheshire Cheese pub in Fleet Street, it did produce anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894. Those who took part included also Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson, Richard Le Gallienne, and Thomas William Rolleston. The group as a whole matched quite closely Yeats' retrospective idea of 'the tragic generation', destined for failure and in many cases early death. By the time Arthur Ransome wrote his Bohemia in London in 1907, the group had already passed into legend: "... the Rhymer's Club used to meet, to drink from tankards, smoke clay pipes, and recite their own poetry". Category:British poets