George Allen (26 March 1832 – 5 September 1907) was an English craftsman and engraver, who became an assistant to

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

and then in consequence a publisher. His name persists in publishing through the Allen & Unwin company.

Early life

The son of John and Rebecca Allen, he was born on 26 March 1832 at

Newark-on-Trent Newark-on-Trent or Newark () is a market town and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district in Nottinghamshire, England. It is on the River Trent, and was historically a major inland port. The A1 road (Great Britain), A1 road bypasses th ...

, and was educated at a private grammar school there. His father died in 1849, and in that year he was apprenticed for four years to an uncle (his mother's brother), a builder in Clerkenwell, London. He became a skilled joiner, and was employed for three and a half years in that capacity on the woodwork of the interior of

Dorchester House Dorchester House was a mansion in Park Lane, Westminster, London, which has had many different forms over time. The last version used as a private residence was that built in 1853 by Robert Stayner Holford. It was demolished in 1929 to make way ...

, Park Lane. Allen and another workman worked for 79 days on a single door in the house, and Ruskin later showed a model of this door to his friends as a specimen of English craftsmanship.

With John Ruskin

On the foundation of the Working Men's College in 1854, Allen joined the drawing class, and became one of Ruskin's pupils there. He was offered a post in Queen Victoria's household, working on the furniture of the royal palaces; but he declined it in order to concentrate on work for Ruskin's service. He took on posts of different kinds for 50 years. For a few years Allen acted as an assistant drawing-master under Ruskin at the college. Ruskin then encouraged him to specialise in engraving, which he studied under

John Henry Le Keux John Henry Le Keux (23 March 1812 – 4 February 1896) was an English architectural engraver and draughtsman. Life The son of John Le Keux, he was born in Argyll Street, Euston Road, London, on 23 March 1812, and studied under James Basire III. H ...

the line engraver; he also studied

mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonal ...

under Thomas Goff Lupton. Allen's duties for Ruskin were various.

Publisher

In 1871 Ruskin decided to set up a publishing house of his own. At a week's notice, and without any previous experience of the trade, Allen started in on this enterprise. His publishing establishment was first his cottage at

Keston Keston is a village in Greater London, England, located within the London Borough of Bromley, Greater London. Prior to 1965 it was withing the historic county of Kent. It is part suburban, part rural in nature and lies on the edge of Hayes Com ...

, and later an out-house in the garden of his villa at

Orpington Orpington is a town and area in south east London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is 13.4 miles (21.6 km) south east of Charing Cross. On the south-eastern edge of the Greater London Built-up Area, it is south of St Ma ...

. In the early days Ruskin's ideas on distribution hampered the business, and in time expansion of the business made for the premises in London. In 1890 Allen opened a London publishing house (trading under the name George Allen & Sons) at 8 Bell Yard,

Chancery Lane Chancery Lane is a one-way street situated in the ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. It has formed the western boundary of the City since 1994, having previously been divided between the City of Westminster and the London Boro ...

; and in 1894 he moved to a larger place at 156 Charing Cross Road. There he took to general publishing, though Ruskin's works remained the major part of his business. His last project was the library edition of Ruskin's works, appearing from 1903 to its completion after his death in 1911.

Death

Allen was one of the original Companions of Ruskin's

Guild of St. George The Guild of St George is a charitable Education Trust, based in England but with a worldwide membership, which tries to uphold the values and put into practice the ideas of its founder, John Ruskin (1819–1900). History Ruskin, a Victorian ...

. He died, in his seventy-sixth year, on 5 September 1907, at Orpington, and is buried in the parish churchyard there. His wife had died, in her eightieth year, eight months before him. His collection of minerals was acquired after his death by the University of Oxford.

Works

Allen made engravings in mixed styles, and these were included in Ruskin's later books. Of the original illustrations in ''

Modern Painters ''Modern Painters'' (1843–1860) is a five-volume work by the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, begun when he was 24 years old based on material collected in Switzerland in 1842. Ruskin argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition of ...

'', three were from drawings by Allen; he engraved three plates for the edition of 1888; and in all executed 90 other plates for Ruskin. As with some of the other assistants, his work has sometimes been mistaken for Ruskin's.

Family

Allen was brought further into connection with Ruskin by marrying (25 December 1856) the latter's mother's maid, Anne Eliza Hobbes. They had four sons and four daughters. The eldest daughter, Grace Allen, and the two eldest sons, William and Hugh, carried on the family business after their father's death. In 1911 George Allen & Sons amalgamated with Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Ltd. (see

William Swan Sonnenschein William Swan Sonnenschein (5 May 1855 – 31 January 1931), known from 1917 as William Swan Stallybrass, was a British publisher, editor and bibliographer. His publishing firm, Swan Sonnenschein, published scholarly works in the fields of philo ...

) and became George Allen & Co. Ltd. In 1913 the firm became insolvent and it was taken over by Stanley Unwin, emerging as

George Allen and Unwin George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It went on to become one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and to establish an ...

.Frank Arthur Mumby and Frances Helena Swan Stallybrass, ''From Swan Sonnenschein to George Allen & Unwin Ltd.'', London: Allen & Unwin, 1955, pp. 7-8.

References

Attribution

External links

George Allen
publisher, at the

Internet Speculative Fiction Database The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) is a database of bibliographic information on genres considered speculative fiction, including science fiction and related genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and horror fiction. The ISFDB ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, George 1832 births 1907 deaths English engravers English publishers (people) People from Newark-on-Trent 19th-century English businesspeople