(1884-1958) UK author, essayist, historian and literary editor who collaborated with John L Balderston on the Timeslip fantasy play Berkeley Square (1928 chap). Squire edited the seminal Alternate History story and essay anthology If It had Happened Otherwise: Lapses into Imaginary History (anth 1931; vt If: or History Rewritten 1931; exp 1972), which assembles a series of Thought Experiments, each extrapolating from a Jonbar Point. Among the contributions are his own squib, "If It Had Been Discovered in 1930 That Bacon Really Did Write Shakespeare" (> Shakespeare), and Winston S Churchill's "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg" (December 1930 Scribner's). The 1972 reissue adds two further contributions, one by the noted historian A J P Taylor (1906-1990). [DRL]

Sir John Collings Squire

born Plymouth, Devon: 2 April 1884

died Rushlake Green, Sussex: 29 December 1958

works as editor

• If It had Happened Otherwise: Lapses into Imaginary History (London: Longmans, Green, 1931) [anth: hb/]
  • If: or History Rewritten (New York: The Viking Press, 1931) [anth: vt of above: hb/]
  • If It had Happened Otherwise: Lapses into Imaginary History (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1971) [anth: exp of original above: hb/nonpictorial]

links

Previous versions of this entry

• 14/10/2011
• 03/12/2011