Victor Plarr

{{More citations needed|date=July 2020}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} {{Infobox writer | embed = | honorific_prefix = | name = Victor Gustave Plarr | honorific_suffix = | image = Victor Gustave Plarr 1863–1929.jpg | image_size = | image_upright = | landscape =  | alt =  | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth date|1863|06|21|df=y}} | birth_place = France | death_date ={{death date and age|1929|01|29|1861|06|21|df=y}} | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Poet | language = | nationality = | citizenship =  | education = | alma_mater = Worcester College | period = | genre =  | subject =  | movement = | notable_works = | spouse =  | partner =  | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | signature_type = | years_active = | module = | website =  | portaldisp =  }}

'''Victor Gustave Plarr''' (21 June 1863 – 28 January 1929) was an English poet; he is probably best known for the poem ''Epitaphium Citharistriae''.

==Life== He was born near Strasbourg, France, of a French father from Alsace, Gustave Plarr, and an English mother, Mary Jane Tomkins, third daughter of the banker Samuel Tomkins.<ref>{{Who's Who|title=Plarr, Victor Gustave|id=U215581|access-date=4 December 2021}}</ref> He was brought up in Scotland and England after his family moved at the time of the Franco-Prussian War. He was educated at Madras College, St Andrews and Tonbridge School. He matriculated at the University of Oxford in 1882. He went on to read history at Worcester College, graduating B.A. in 1886.<ref>{{alox2|title=Plarr, Victor Gustavus}}</ref>

Plarr worked as a librarian, first (from 1890) at King's College London, then at the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 1897 until his death. The following year, the first two volumes of ''Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons'' were published under the editorship of D'Arcy Power. Often known as ''Plarr's Lives of the Fellows'', the biographies of the original 300 fellows are considered an early social history of English medicine.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.historyofmedicine.com/id/7850|title=History of Medicine|last=|first=|date=|website=www.historyofmedicine.com|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=16 June 2019}}</ref>

In 1891 Plarr edited the 13th edition of ''Men of the Time'', changing its title to ''Men and Women of the Time''.<ref>Alison Booth (2004) ''How to Make it as a Woman'', page 331, University of Chicago Press {{ISBN|0226065464}}</ref>

Plarr was a founding member of the Rhymers' Club. A generally uncongenial figure, he was befriended in 1909 by Ezra Pound, who enjoyed Plarr's tales of the "decadent nineties".

==Works== *''In the Dorian Mood'' (1896) *''A School History of Middlesex including London'' (1905) (with Francis W. Walton) *''The Tragedy of Asgard'' (1905) *''Ernest Dowson 1888-1897'' (1914) *[http://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/ ''Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons''] (1930)

== External links ==

* Archive material at [https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/439587/letter_from_plarr_victor_to_jo Leeds University Library]

==References== {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plarr, Victor}} Category:1863 births Category:1929 deaths Category:English librarians Category:Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford Category:English male poets Category:People educated at Madras College Category:French emigrants to the United Kingdom