John McClure

John Peebles McClure (December 19, 1893 - February 8, 1956) was an American poet and one of the founders of the literary magazine Double Dealer. John Peebles McClure was born in Ardmore, Chicago, Indiana (Oklahoma), in the family of John Alexander and Mary Elizabeth Peebles McClure. His mother died in 1896, and the family moved several times, eventually settling in Chikash in 1901. John attended public and private schools before entering the University of Oklahoma in 1911. After receiving a bachelor's degree. in 1915 he worked at the university library. During the First World War, he served in the US cavalry army and in field artillery. After the war, he married the librarian Grace Binford Smith (1918). In 1919, McClures moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, where they opened a bookstore. McClure also worked as a copy editor for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He had to maintain a professional relationship with the Times-Picayune for 33 years, turning into a managing editor. McClure published his first poem in the London magazine Egoist in 1914. His early style was influenced by William Blake, English and Scottish ballads and lyric poetry by Elizabeth. As his reputation grew, he published in a variety of American literary magazines, including American Mercury and Smart Set. H. L. Mencken, co-editor of Smart Set, considered McClure “the best lyric poet” created by the nation in fifty years. McClure's books include Mrs. and Ballads (a collection of his own poems, 1918) and The Horn Book of a Deer (a collection of drinking songs, 1918). McClure was one of the four founding editors of Double Dealer, a literary magazine in New Orleans, who was an early champion of William Faulkner and who published many other well-known American modernist writers. McClure widely admired book reviews he published in The Times Picayn and Double Dealer. McClure died in New Orleans on February 8, 1956. He left his second wife, Joyce Cavanaugh Stagg, whom he married in 1937.