Edward Powys Mathers (28 August 1892 – 3 February 1939) was an English translator and poet, and also a pioneer of compiling advanced cryptic crosswords. Powys Mathers was born in Forest Hill, London, the son of Edward Peter Mathers, newspaper proprietor.[1] He was educated at Loretto School and Trinity College, Oxford.
He translated J. C. Mardrus's French version of One Thousand Nights and One Night. His English version of Mardrus appeared in 1923, and is known as Mardrus/Mathers. He also translated The Garden of Bright Waters: One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems (1920); and the Kashmiri poet Bilhana in Bilhana: Black Marigolds (1919), a free interpretation in the tradition of Edward FitzGerald, quoted at length in John Steinbeck’s novel Cannery Row. These are not scholarly works, and are in some cases based on intermediate versions in European languages. Some of his translations were set to music by Aaron Copland.
He was also a composer of cryptic crosswords for The Observer under the pseudonym "Torquemada" from 1926 until his death. He was the author of Crosswords for Riper Years (1925) and The Torquemada Puzzle Book (1934), which included the murder mystery puzzle Cain's Jawbone.[2] Under this pseudonym, he reviewed detective stories from 1934 to 1939.
In 1919 he married Rosamond Crowdy (5 July 1886 – 7 June 1965), third daughter of Colonel H. Crowdy, RE.[2]
He died in his sleep at his home in Hampstead.[3]
^"Edward Powys Mathers". www.crossword.org.uk. (See Wikipedia article for Edward Peter Mathers.)
^ abThe Scotsman, 6 February 1939, page 10.
^The Stage, 9 February 1939, page 7.
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Works by EdwardPowysMathers at Project Gutenberg Works by EdwardPowysMathers at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Works by EdwardPowysMathers at Faded...
Mathers is an English surname and may refer to: Edward Peter Mathers (1850–1924), British journalist and newspaper proprietor EdwardPowysMathers (1892–1939)...
In Durban on 6 August 1885 Mathers married Mary Augusta Powys, a daughter of R. H. Powys who was a cousin of Thomas Powys, 4th Baron Lilford. The marriage...
PowysMathers' "Black Marigolds" as the source of the phrase "savoring of the hot taste of life" in his novel Performance Anomalies, and uses Mathers'...
Notable translations are those of Sir Edwin Arnold(London 1896) and EdwardPowysMathers (Oxford, 1919) titled Black Marigolds. This latter version was quoted...
1562–1624), Spanish friar, missionary and historian of the New World EdwardPowysMathers (1892–1939) (pseudonym Torquemada), British crossword setter Alonzo...
thriller nevertheless", which is a view shared by "Torquemada" (EdwardPowysMathers), who called this "the least of all the Poirot books" and then concluded...
with strictly cryptic clues appeared in the 1920s, pioneered by EdwardPowysMathers. He established the principle of cryptic crossword clues. Cryptic...
unexciting clues." In The Observer's issue of 1 May 1938, "Torquemada" (EdwardPowysMathers) said, "I have to confess I have just been beaten again by Agatha...
a prize for solving Cain's Jawbone, a literary puzzle created by EdwardPowysMathers in 1934. In 2023, Finnemore revealed he was writing a sequel to the...
1936, in a review section entitled Supreme de Poirot, "Torquemada" (EdwardPowysMathers) wrote, "I was not the only one who thought that Poirot or his creator...
absorbing tale". In The Observer 12 July 1936 issue, "Torquemada" (EdwardPowysMathers) wrote that "Agatha Christie tells a humorous, well-observed story...
reading". In The Observer's issue of 6 January 1935, "Torquemada" (EdwardPowysMathers) said, "Her gift is pure genius, of leading the reader by the nose...
incomplete quotations, and other references and wordplay. Torquemada (EdwardPowysMathers), who set for The Saturday Westminster from 1925 and for The Observer...
devices." In The Observer's issue of 18 April 1937, "Torquemada" (EdwardPowysMathers) wrote: "It is rather for herself than for the four awkwardly shaped...
(by orientalists such as Launcelot Cranmer-Byng, Herbert Giles, EdwardPowysMathers and Arthur Waley) to music, including Benjamin Britten in his cycle...
His translation, however, was incomplete. In 1923 a translation by EdwardPowysMathers based on the French translation by J. C. Mardrus appeared. Another...
besides. In The Observer's issue of 30 June 1935, "Torquemada" (EdwardPowysMathers) started his review, "My admiration for Mrs. Christie is such that...
erotic nature of The Song of Songs and of the illustrations for EdwardPowysMathers's Procreant Hymn caused considerable controversy in Roman Catholic...
position of crossword compiler for The Observer on the death of EdwardPowysMathers, who had written under the name of "Torquemada". Macnutt selected...
characters." In The Observer's issue of 18 November 1934, "Torquemada" (EdwardPowysMathers) stated that Christie was, "the only consistently inspired practitioner...
Bantock also set other English translationd of Chinese poetry from EdwardPowysMathers (Five Chinese Songs) and Herbert Giles (Ten Songs from the Chinese...
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