Clarence Malcolm Lowry was born in Cheshire, England, on July 28, 1909, to cotton broker
Arthur Osborne and Evelyn (Boden) Lowry. His early life was marked by distance from his
parents, and the alcoholism that would afflict him for the rest of his life began when he
was just a teenager. As a young boy he was sent to private boarding schools and was expected
to enter the family business after completing college. After finishing boarding school, he
worked on the British freighter S. S.
A year after graduating from Cambridge, Lowry published his first novel,
Lowry and Gabrial's relationship was rocky, and soon after the marriage, Gabrial returned to her home in New York, leaving Lowry in Paris. He followed her to New York in 1935, where his drinking problem was treated in Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric ward. The two moved to Mexico in 1936, and a year later, Gabrial once again left Lowry, and returned to the United States. During the remainder of his time in Mexico, Lowry sank further into depression and alcoholism and began working on a draft of
In 1938, Lowry returned to the United States where he met former actress Margerie Bonner. They moved to Canada upon the expiration of Lowry's U. S. visa, and after securing a divorce from Gabrial in 1940, Lowry married Bonner. Following the destruction of their home by a fire in 1944, Lowry and Bonner moved in with their friends, Gerald and Betty Noxon, where Lowry completed
Lowry found it difficult to produce new work after
Despite continued efforts, Lowry never published a novel after
After the termination of his contract with Random House, in 1954 Lowry and his wife began travelling in Europe. They rented a cottage in England in February 1956, where Lowry lethally overdosed on alcohol and barbiturates and died on June 27, 1957.
Tiessen, Paul.
The Malcolm Lowry Collection consists of a manuscript for
The Works series consists of a manuscript of
Series II. contains Lowry's and his wife Margerie Bonner's correspondence to Gerald Noxon and James Stern. Some of the letters detail Lowry's works, while many document his personal life. Both sides of the correspondence with Noxon have been combined and arranged in chronological order. These materials have been published in
Purchases 1967 (R3425), 1970 (R5413); 2010 (2010-12-11-P)
Open for research
Katy Hill, 2008; Stephen Cooper, 2011
The Ransom Center also holds a folder of letters from Margerie Bonner Lowry to Richard Hauer Costa, 1964-1974, regarding Costa's biography of Malcolm Lowry, published in 1972. Additional materials related to Malcolm Lowry can be found in the following collections: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; Nancy Cunard; Hugh Kenner;