A Brief Lowryan Chronology

1909

Clarence Malcolm Lowry born on 28 July in Cheshire, England.

1911

The Lowry family moves to Caldy, Wirral, Cheshire.

1915-23

Lowry attends Braeside School and Caldicote School.

1923-27

Attends the Leys School, Cambridge.

1927

May-October: Lowry sails to the Far East as a cabin boy/deck hand aboard the S.S. Pyrrhus.

1929

April-September: in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lowry studies under American poet and novelist Conrad Aiken. October: enters St. Catherine's College, Cambridge University, England.

1930

Travels to Norway to meet novelist Nordahl Grieg.

1932

Graduates from Cambridge with a B.A. in English.

1933

Jonathan Cape publishes Lowry's first novel Ultramarine.

1934

Lowry marries his first wife, Jan Gabrial, in Paris.

1935

Lowry spends ten days in psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital, New York. Begins writing an early version of Lunar Caustic.

1936

November: in Cuernavaca, Mexico with Jan. Begins writing Under the Volcano.

1937

Conrad Aiken visits Lowry in Guernavaca. Jan Gabrial leaves Lowry.

1938

Lowry goes to Los Angeles where he begins working on the second draft of Under the Volcano.

1939

Meets Margerie Bonner on July 7; goes to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada where he is joined by Margerie. Begins third draft of Under the Volcano.

1940

August: Lowry and Margerie move to a squatter's shack in Dollarton near Vancouver. His divorce from Jan is finalized and hemarries Margerie on 2 December.

1941

Working on fourth draft of Under the Volcano.

1944

Lowry's shack burns down. He and Margerie go to Niagra-on-the-Lake, Ontario to stay with Gerald Noxon where he completes the fourth draft of Under the Volcano on Christmas Eve.

1945

In February Lowry returns to Dollarton and rebuilds shack. Travels to Mexico with Margerie in November.

1946

Under the Volcano is accepted for publication by Reynal & Hitchcock in New York and Jonathan Cape in London. Lowry is deported from Mexico and returns to Dollarton. He later travels to New York via New Orleans and Haiti.

1947

Under the Volcano published in New York on 19 February and in London on 1 September.

1948

Returns to Vancouver. Sails to Europe via the Panama Canal.

1949

Lowry returns to Dollarton where he works on the stories in Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place and other writing.

1950-54

Working on October Ferry to Gabriola, Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid and other stories and poems.

1954

Final departure from Dollarton for New York and Italy.

1955

Arrives in England and moves to the village of Ripe in Sussex.

1957

Malcolm Lowry dies in Ripe on June 27th.