Martin Donisthorpe Armstrong (2 October 1882 – 24 February 1974) was an English writer and poet, known for his stories. Armstrong was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke College, Cambridge. During World War I he volunteered with the British Army and served in France as a Private in the Artists' Rifles. He was commissioned into the 8th Battalion Middlesex Regiment, T.F. in 1915 and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in 1916. He was included in the final Georgian Poetry anthology. He married in 1929 Canadian writer Jessie McDonald after she had divorced Conrad Aiken, making Armstrong the stepfather of the young Joan Aiken. He appears in disguised form as a character in Conrad Aiken's Ushant. Works Exodus (1912) poems Thirty New Poems (1918) Lady Hester Stanhope (1920) biography The Buzzards and Other Poems (1921) The Puppet Show (1922) stories Jeremy Taylor, A selection from his works (1923) editor The Foster-Mother (n.d.) The Bazaar and Other Stories (1924) The Goat and Compasses (1925) novel Desert, a Legend (1926) novel The Stepson (1927) novel [published in the U.S. as The Water is Wide] Sir Pompey and Madame Juno (1927) stories Saint Hercules and Other Stories (1927), Paul Nash illustrator St. Christopher's Day (1928) novel Portrait of the Misses Harlowe (1928) story The Three-Cornered Hat (1928) translation Laughing (1928) essay The Sleeping Fury (1929) novel The Bird-catcher and other poems (1929) The Fiery Dive and Other Stories (1929) Adrian Glynde, A Novel (1930) Collected Poems (1931) Blind Man's Mark (1931) The Paintbox, "How and Why" Series (1931) The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah his Wife (1931) novel The Fothergill Omnibus (1931) anthology Lover's Leap (1932) Fifty-four Conceits: A Collection of Epigrams and Epitaphs Serious and Comic (1933) General Buntop's Miracle and Other Stories (1934) The Major Pleasures of Life (1934) an Anthology selected and arranged by Armstrong Venus Over Lannery (1936) novel A Case of Conscience and Other Tales (1937) Spanish Circus: Charles IV of Spain (1937) The Snake in the Grass (1938) novel Victorian Peepshow (1938) autobiography Simplicity Jones and Other Stories (1940) Chichester Concert (1944) ode George Borrow (1950) Selected Stories (1951) The Crumb for the Bird (1970) References External links 1882 births 1974 deaths People educated at Charterhouse School Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge Artists' Rifles soldiers Middlesex Regiment officers British Army personnel of World War I English male short story