George Grimes Watson was born in Brisbane, Australia, on 13 October 1927. He was educated at Brisbane Boys' College and the University of Queensland, where he graduated in 1948 with a degree in English. He secured a scholarship for a second degree and received an English degree from Trinity College, Oxford in 1950; he worked for the European Commission as an interpreter before becoming a lecturer in English at Cambridge in 1959 and a Fellow of St John's College in 1961. He remained at St John's until his death on 2 August 2013.
Watson edited 'The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature'. As well as producing wide-ranging literary and cultural criticism, he was involved in leftist politics, campaigning as a Liberal candidate in 1959 and 1979 and working as Editor for the Unservile State Group; his political writing often critiques socialism from a liberal perspective.
Published
First published 1967. This subseries contains research material, correspondence and reviews. Items will ultimately be catalogued individually; for now, a list follows.
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Photocopies and offprints of research material
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CORRESPONDENCE
BARTON, Anne
BUXTON, John
KLEIN, Holger M
LONSDALE, Roger
MEYER, Anne-Marie
STERNFELD, Fred W
THOMSON, Patricia
TRAPP, Joseph Burney
WIND, Edgar
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REVIEWS