F. W. Leakey
Felix William Leakey (1922 – 7 December 1999) was a British Romance studies and literary scholar. He was a specialist on the French poet Charles Baudelaire.
Biography
Born in Singapore, Leakey grew up in Argentina and Morocco, among other places. From 1931 to 1934, he attended the Lycée français in Tangier. He studied at Queen Mary University of London, where he received his doctorate. He taught at the universities of Sheffield, Glasgow and Reading and was Professor of French at Bedford College, University of London, from 1973 until his retirement.
While traveling in Ireland, Leakey discovered the original manuscript of Samuel Beckett’s translation of Rimbaud’s “Le Bateau ivre.” Drunken boat: a translation of Arthur Rimbaud’s poem Le Bateau ivre was published in 1976.
He died in Northumberland, England.
Works
- The French Renaissance and its Heritage. Essays Presented to Alan Martin Boase by Colleagues, Pupils and Friends (1968; editor)
- Sound and Sense in French Poetry. An Inaugural Lecture (1975)
- Baudelaire: Collected Essays, 1953-1988 (1990)
- Baudelaire. Les Fleurs du mal (1992)
- Selected Poems from Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of evil) (1994)
