Martin Donisthorpe Armstrong was an English writer and poet who established a reputation for his short stories and verse during the early to mid-twentieth century. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1882, he received his education at Charterhouse before attending Pembroke College, Cambridge. With the outbreak of the First World War, Armstrong volunteered for military service with the British Army. He served in France as a private in the Artists' Rifles, later receiving a commission in the Middlesex Regiment and rising to the rank of lieutenant by 1916.
Armstrong's literary career was closely tied to the Georgian poetry movement, and his work was featured in the final volume of the influential Georgian Poetry anthologies. Beyond his poetry, he was highly regarded for his prose, particularly his short stories. In 1929, Armstrong married the Canadian writer Jessie McDonald following her divorce from the American novelist and poet Conrad Aiken. Through this marriage, Armstrong became the stepfather of the future children's author Joan Aiken. His relationship with the Aiken family also led to his inclusion, in a disguised form, as a character in Conrad Aiken's autobiographical work Ushant.
