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Donald Sidney-Fryer
Donald Sidney-Fryer (September 8, 1934 – May 2, 2026) was an American poet, critic, literary historian, ballet historian and performer. Edmund Spenser and Clark Ashton Smith were his “two poetic mentors.” Sidney-Fryer saw his poetry as part of a "Modern Romanticism" tradition along with Ashton Smith, Ambrose Bierce, George Sterling, and other poets he calls the “California Romantics”. Poet Richard L. Tierney said Sidney-Fryer's poems "make us see ... the ideals that moved us when we were less 'secure' and more human: adventure, love of life, and above all, the intricate beauty of a world long vanished—yet not vanished, if only we had eyes to see." Sidney-Fryer was a pioneering literary historian and critic focusing on California literature and writers. He was called "the pre-eminent scholar of [Clark Ashton Smith]’s work”, who “... not only established the foundations for all future scholarship in this field, but he also wrote some of the most insightful and valuable evaluations of Smith's oeuvre ever written.” His five-volume history of Romantic Ballet and the career of ballet composer Cesare Pugni, The Case of the Light Fantastic Toe, was described as "deserv[ing] to be in every college music library." Sidney-Fryer also promoted poets and poetry by writing and starring in one-man shows throughout the United States and Great Britain, often appearing in an Elizabethan English costume and billing himself as "the last of the courtly poets."
Sidney-Fryer was born and raised in the Atlantic coastal city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was originally named Donald Sidney Fryer, Junior, but early in life dropped the "Junior," and in 1970 or early 1971 added a hyphen between his middle and last names.
After graduating from high school, Sidney-Fryer could not afford to go to college. He knew the United States G. I. Bill would pay for college after military service, so to further his education he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in October 1953. In the Marines' three libraries at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, Sidney-Fryer first began reading science fiction. Then he was transferred to the Marine Air Station at Opa-locka (today the Coast Guard Air Station Miami). At the Opa-locka base library, Sidney-Fryer first read the works of Arthur C. Clarke, August Derleth, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. He was especially affected by Smith's story “The City of the Singing Flame”:
Emotionally and spiritually this last narrative, written in quite a remarkable and highly poetic prose, the like of which I had never encountered before, bowled me over and knocked me down, not just because of the colorful, vivid, and intense imagination that had shaped the story but equally because of the uncommon vocabulary without which the story could not have come into existence. Because I had studied Latin, French, and English each for four years in high school, particularly Latin, the vocabulary per se gave me no real problem. However, I had almost never before encountered such uncommon words, obviously Latinate, employed in a piece of fiction ...
On September 5, 1955, Sidney-Fryer was transferred to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Orange County, California. In the base library there, he was impressed by The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce.
In September 1956, Sidney-Fryer began studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He initially majored in theatre arts and minored in French. In the evenings he studied ballet under Tatiana Riabouchinska, formerly with the Ballets Russes, and her husband David Lichine. He had performing in mind: “Even if I could not have become a ballet dancer at twenty or twenty-one, I knew the value of rigorous dance training in shaping a capable all-around performer.” After two years, he changed his major to French and minor to Spanish, thinking he would become a teacher of languages.
Sidney-Fryer used the libraries of UCLA to investigate the history and creators of Romantic Ballet, which flourished from 1827 to the late 1800s. He took note of composer Cesare Pugni, who wrote symphonies, ten operas, forty masses, and more than three hundred ballet scores. Little had been published about Pugni and his works. Sidney-Fryer began compiling the names of Pugni's ballet scores and data about them. In addition to his own research, he hired researchers in London and Milan to uncover more information. Sidney-Fryer assembled the information as Cesare Pugni, 180?-1870: Checklist of Ballets and self-published a limited number of copies. A publisher in Italy then paid Sidney-Fryer to include his checklist in volume seven of its Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo in 1961.
On August 26 and 27, 1958, Sidney-Fryer visited his literary hero Clark Ashton Smith and Smith's wife Carol in their home in Pacific Grove, California. Sidney-Fryer recalled, “when I asked him what poet meant to him what [Smith] meant to me, he turned around to a bookcase behind him and picked out a volume that had a dark blue Art Nouveau cover with a pictorial design and printing etched in silver: The House of Orchids (1911), by George Sterling.” Sidney-Fryer said Smith "made me appreciate Sterling strongly. To me Sterling was the epitome of Romanticism which strongly influenced my style of Romanticism."
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Donald Sidney-Fryer
Donald Sidney-Fryer (September 8, 1934 – May 2, 2026) was an American poet, critic, literary historian, ballet historian and performer. Edmund Spenser and Clark Ashton Smith were his “two poetic mentors.” Sidney-Fryer saw his poetry as part of a "Modern Romanticism" tradition along with Ashton Smith, Ambrose Bierce, George Sterling, and other poets he calls the “California Romantics”. Poet Richard L. Tierney said Sidney-Fryer's poems "make us see ... the ideals that moved us when we were less 'secure' and more human: adventure, love of life, and above all, the intricate beauty of a world long vanished—yet not vanished, if only we had eyes to see." Sidney-Fryer was a pioneering literary historian and critic focusing on California literature and writers. He was called "the pre-eminent scholar of [Clark Ashton Smith]’s work”, who “... not only established the foundations for all future scholarship in this field, but he also wrote some of the most insightful and valuable evaluations of Smith's oeuvre ever written.” His five-volume history of Romantic Ballet and the career of ballet composer Cesare Pugni, The Case of the Light Fantastic Toe, was described as "deserv[ing] to be in every college music library." Sidney-Fryer also promoted poets and poetry by writing and starring in one-man shows throughout the United States and Great Britain, often appearing in an Elizabethan English costume and billing himself as "the last of the courtly poets."
Sidney-Fryer was born and raised in the Atlantic coastal city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was originally named Donald Sidney Fryer, Junior, but early in life dropped the "Junior," and in 1970 or early 1971 added a hyphen between his middle and last names.
After graduating from high school, Sidney-Fryer could not afford to go to college. He knew the United States G. I. Bill would pay for college after military service, so to further his education he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in October 1953. In the Marines' three libraries at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, Sidney-Fryer first began reading science fiction. Then he was transferred to the Marine Air Station at Opa-locka (today the Coast Guard Air Station Miami). At the Opa-locka base library, Sidney-Fryer first read the works of Arthur C. Clarke, August Derleth, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. He was especially affected by Smith's story “The City of the Singing Flame”:
Emotionally and spiritually this last narrative, written in quite a remarkable and highly poetic prose, the like of which I had never encountered before, bowled me over and knocked me down, not just because of the colorful, vivid, and intense imagination that had shaped the story but equally because of the uncommon vocabulary without which the story could not have come into existence. Because I had studied Latin, French, and English each for four years in high school, particularly Latin, the vocabulary per se gave me no real problem. However, I had almost never before encountered such uncommon words, obviously Latinate, employed in a piece of fiction ...
On September 5, 1955, Sidney-Fryer was transferred to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Orange County, California. In the base library there, he was impressed by The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce.
In September 1956, Sidney-Fryer began studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He initially majored in theatre arts and minored in French. In the evenings he studied ballet under Tatiana Riabouchinska, formerly with the Ballets Russes, and her husband David Lichine. He had performing in mind: “Even if I could not have become a ballet dancer at twenty or twenty-one, I knew the value of rigorous dance training in shaping a capable all-around performer.” After two years, he changed his major to French and minor to Spanish, thinking he would become a teacher of languages.
Sidney-Fryer used the libraries of UCLA to investigate the history and creators of Romantic Ballet, which flourished from 1827 to the late 1800s. He took note of composer Cesare Pugni, who wrote symphonies, ten operas, forty masses, and more than three hundred ballet scores. Little had been published about Pugni and his works. Sidney-Fryer began compiling the names of Pugni's ballet scores and data about them. In addition to his own research, he hired researchers in London and Milan to uncover more information. Sidney-Fryer assembled the information as Cesare Pugni, 180?-1870: Checklist of Ballets and self-published a limited number of copies. A publisher in Italy then paid Sidney-Fryer to include his checklist in volume seven of its Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo in 1961.
On August 26 and 27, 1958, Sidney-Fryer visited his literary hero Clark Ashton Smith and Smith's wife Carol in their home in Pacific Grove, California. Sidney-Fryer recalled, “when I asked him what poet meant to him what [Smith] meant to me, he turned around to a bookcase behind him and picked out a volume that had a dark blue Art Nouveau cover with a pictorial design and printing etched in silver: The House of Orchids (1911), by George Sterling.” Sidney-Fryer said Smith "made me appreciate Sterling strongly. To me Sterling was the epitome of Romanticism which strongly influenced my style of Romanticism."