Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis (28 August 1907 – 8 December 1999) was an English publisher and editor. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. As a biographer, he is remembered for his ''Hugh Walpole'' (1952), as an editor, for his ''Collected Letters of Oscar Wilde'' (1962), and, as both editor and part-author, for the ''

Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters The Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters are a correspondence between two literary Englishmen, George Lyttelton (1883–1962) and Rupert Hart-Davis (1907–99), written between 1955 and Lyttelton's death, and published by Hart-Davis in six volumes betwee ...

''. Working at a publishing firm before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Hart-Davis began to forge literary relationships that would be important later in his career. Founding his publishing company in 1946, Hart-Davis was praised for the quality of the firm's publications and production; but he refused to cater to public tastes, and the firm eventually lost money. After relinquishing control of the firm, Hart-Davis concentrated on writing and editing, producing collections of letters and other works which brought him the sobriquet "the king of editors".

Biography

Early years

Hart-Davis was born in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, London. He was legally the son of Richard Hart-Davis, a stockbroker, and his wife Sybil ''née'' Cooper, but by the time of his conception the couple were estranged, though still living together, and Sybil Hart-Davis had many lovers at that time. Hart-Davis believed the most likely candidate for his natural father to be a Yorkshire banker called

Gervase Beckett The Honourable Sir William Gervase Beckett, 1st Baronet (14 January 1866 – 24 August 1937), born William Gervase Beckett-Denison, was a British banker and Conservative politician. Business career Beckett was the son of William Beckett-Deniso ...

.Norwich, John Julius
"Davis, Sir Rupert Charles Hart- (1907–1999)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 29 November 2008 As a child, Rupert Hart-Davis and his sister Deirdre Hart-Davis were drawn by

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...

and painted by William Nicholson (1912). Hart-Davis was educated at

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England * Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States * Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...

and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

, though he found university life not to his taste and left after less than a year. Hart-Davis decided to become an actor, and he studied at

The Old Vic The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, nonprofit organization, not-for-profit producing house, producing theatre in Waterloo, London, Waterloo, London, England. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Th ...

, where he came to realise that he was not a talented enough actor to succeed, and he turned instead to publishing in 1929, joining William Heinemann Ltd. as an office boy and assistant to the managing director Charley Evans. He spent two years with Heinemann and a year as manager of the Book Society. During this period, he built up good relationships with a number of authors and was able to negotiate a directorship for himself at Jonathan Cape Ltd.''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' obituary, 9 December 1999 In his seven years with Cape, Hart-Davis recruited a successful group of authors ranging from the poets

William Plomer William Charles Franklyn Plomer (10 December 1903 – 20 September 1973) was a South African and British novelist, poet and literary editor. He also wrote a series of librettos for Benjamin Britten. He wrote some of his poetry under the pseud ...

Cecil Day-Lewis Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis; 27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often written as C. Day-Lewis, was an Irish-born British poet and Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Bla ...

Edmund Blunden Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was als ...

and

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...

, to the humorist

Beachcomber A beachcomber is a person who practices beachcombing. Beachcomber or Beachcombers may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''The Beachcomber'' (1915 film), an American drama * ''The Beachcomber'' (1938 film), starring Charles Laughton and a ...

. He was well placed to secure

Duff Cooper Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian. First elected to Parliament in 192 ...

's life of Talleyrand, as Cooper was his uncle. As the junior partner at Cape, he had to handle their difficult authors including

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...

Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...

and

Arthur Ransome Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...

, the last being seen as difficult because of his wife Genia, with her "distrustfulness, venom and guile". Hart-Davis was a close friend of Ransome, sharing an enthusiasm for cricket and rugby. After Herbert Jonathan Cape's death in 1960 he commented to George Lyttelton that Cape had been "one of the tightest-fisted old bastards I've ever encountered".Hart-Davis, Volume 4, letter of 20 February 1960 The second partner, Wren Howard, was "even tighter" than Cape, and neither of them liked fraternising with authors, which they left to Hart-Davis. In World War II Hart-Davis volunteered for military service as a private soldier, but was soon commissioned into the

Coldstream Guards The Coldstream Guards is the oldest continuously serving regular regiment in the British Army. As part of the Household Division, one of its principal roles is the protection of the monarchy; due to this, it often participates in state ceremonia ...

. He did not see active service, never being stationed more than 25 miles from London.

Independent publisher

After the war, Hart-Davis was unable to obtain satisfactory terms from Jonathan Cape to return to the company, and in 1946 he struck out on his own, founding Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd, in partnership with

David Garnett David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981) was an English writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life. Early ...

and Teddy Young and with financial backing from

Eric Linklater Eric Robert Russell Linklater CBE (8 March 1899 – 7 November 1974) was a Welsh-born Scottish poet, fiction writer, military historian, and travel writer. For ''The Wind on the Moon'', a children's fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Meda ...

H. E. Bates Herbert Ernest Bates (16 May 1905 – 29 January 1974), better known as H. E. Bates, was an English writer. His best-known works include ''Love for Lydia'', '' The Darling Buds of May'', and '' My Uncle Silas''. Early life H.E. Bates was ...

Geoffrey Keynes Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes ( ; 25 March 1887, Cambridge – 5 July 1982, Cambridge) was a British surgeon and author. He began his career as a physician in World War I, before becoming a doctor at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, where he ...

, and Celia and Peter Fleming. His own literary tastes dictated which books were accepted and which were rejected. Frequently he turned down commercial successes because he thought little of the works' literary merit. He later said, "I usually found that the sales of the books I published were in inverse ratio to my opinion of them. That's why I established some sort of reputation without making any money." In 1946 paper was still rationed; the firm used Garnett's ex-serviceman's ration, but as only one ex-serviceman's ration could be used per firm it could not use that of Hart-Davis. However, the firm was given the allocation at cost of a Glasgow bookseller and occasional pre-war publisher, Alan Jackson. The partners decided to start initially with reprints of dead authors, as if a new book became a best-seller the firm would not have paper for a reprint and the author might leave. They made an exception for

Stephen Potter Stephen Meredith Potter (1 February 1900 – 2 December 1969) was a British writer best known for his parodies of self-help books, and their film and television derivatives. After leaving school in the last months of the First World War he wa ...

's ''

Gamesmanship Gamesmanship is the use of dubious (although not technically illegal) methods to win or gain a serious advantage in a game or sport. It has been described as "Pushing the rules to the limit without getting caught, using whatever dubious methods po ...

'' which was a short book, collected every ream of paper they could buy and printed 25,000 copies. Likewise 25,000 copies of Eric Linklater's ''Sealskin Trousers'' (five short stories) were printed. The firm had best-sellers such as ''Gamesmanship'' and

Heinrich Harrer Heinrich Harrer (; 6 July 1912 – 7 January 2006) was an Austrian mountaineer, sportsman, geographer, ''Oberscharführer'' in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS), and author. He was a member of the four-man climbing team that made the first ascent of th ...

's ''

Seven Years in Tibet ''Seven Years in Tibet: My Life Before, During and After'' (1952; german: Sieben Jahre in Tibet. Mein Leben am Hofe des Dalai Lama; 1954 in English) is an autobiographical travel book written by Austrian mountaineer and Nazi SS sergeant Heinrich ...

'', which sold more than 200,000 copies.''The Times'', 29 November 1979, p. 15 Also in the early years Hart-Davis secured

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and r ...

for his firm, recognising the quality of a science fiction author who also wrote poetry. Other good sellers were Peter Fleming, Eric Linklater and

Gerald Durrell Gerald Malcolm Durrell, (7 January 1925 – 30 January 1995) was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island ...

; but best-sellers were too few, and though the output of Rupert-Hart-Davis Ltd was regularly praised for the high quality of its printing and binding, that too was an expense that weighed the company down. A further expense was added when

G. M. Young George Malcolm Young (29 April 1882 – 18 November 1959) was an English historian, best known for his book on Victorian times in Britain, ''Portrait of an Age'' (1936). After a short time as an academic and a career as a civil servant lasting ...

's biography of

Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...

was published in 1952; both

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

and

Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...

threatened to sue if certain passages were not removed or amended. With the help of the lawyer Arnold Goodman an agreement was reached to replace the offending sentences, but the firm had the "hideously expensive" job of removing and replacing seven leaves from 7,580 copies. By the mid-fifties, Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd could no longer sustain an independent existence and in 1956 it was absorbed into the

Heinemann Heinemann may refer to: * Heinemann (surname) * Heinemann (publisher), a publishing company * Heinemann Park, a.k.a. Pelican Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States See also * Heineman * Jamie Hyneman James Franklin Hyneman (born Se ...

group. Heinemann sold the imprint to the American firm

Harcourt Brace Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City an ...

in 1961, who sold it to the Granada Group in 1963, when Hart-Davis retired from publishing, though remaining as non-executive chairman until 1968. Granada merged Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd with sister imprint MacGibbon & Kee in 1972 to form Hart-Davis, MacGibbon. The Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd logo was a woodcut of a fox, with a background of oak leaves. The company was based at No. 36

Soho Square Soho Square is a garden square in Soho, London, hosting since 1954 a ''de facto'' public park let by the Soho Square Garden Committee to Westminster City Council. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, and a much weathered s ...

, London W1. Reprint series published over the years were the ''Reynard Library'' of great English writers and the ''Mariners Library'' of nautical books.

Author

Hugh Walpole Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (13 March 18841 June 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among th ...

's literary executor, and being unable to find a potential biographer who would tackle the job to his satisfaction, Hart-Davis proposed to Walpole's publishers,

Macmillan MacMillan, Macmillan, McMillen or McMillan may refer to: People * McMillan (surname) * Clan MacMillan, a Highland Scottish clan * Harold Macmillan, British statesman and politician * James MacMillan, Scottish composer * William Duncan MacMillan ...

, that he should write the biography himself, to which

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...

replied that he couldn't think of a better person to do it. When ''Hugh Walpole'' was published in 1952, it was praised as "among the half dozen best biographies of the century". It has been reissued several times. L-HD-Letters-spines

Hart-Davis wrote no more books until after his retirement from publishing, but between 1955 and 1962, he wrote about a quarter of a million words to his old schoolmaster George Lyttelton, which, together with Lyttelton's similar contribution, made up the six volumes of the

, published between 1978 and 1984 after Lyttelton's death. Although he spent much of his life researching old letters, Hart-Davis destroyed the originals of the letters after his edited versions of them had been printed. He was equally unscholarly about his uncle Duff Cooper's diaries, whose frankness shocked him so much that he wanted to destroy them. In retirement, Hart-Davis wrote three volumes of autobiography entitled ''The Arms of Time'' (1979), ''The Power of Chance'' (1991) and, ''Halfway to Heaven'' (1998). The first, a particularly cherished project, was a memoir of his beloved mother Sybil, who died young, to her son's desolation.

Editor

Hart-Davis was described by ''The Times'' as "the king of editors". He edited volumes of the letters of the playwright

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

, the writer and caricaturist

Max Beerbohm Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (24 August 1872 – 20 May 1956) was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist under the signature Max. He first became known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist. He was the drama critic for the '' Saturday ...

, and the writer George Moore, as well as the diaries of the poet

Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both describ ...

and the autobiography of

. ''A Beggar in Purple'', his commonplace book, was published in 1983. ''Praise from the Past'', a collection of tributes to writers, was published in 1996. His ''Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde'', compiled over the same period as Hart-Davis's correspondence with George Lyttelton, was described in a review of the latter as "a mammoth undertaking whose difficulties and challenges are documented in great detail in the letters, giving a satisfying portrayal of what dedication in literary scholarship looks like from the inside". Wilde's grandson,

Merlin Holland Christopher Merlin Vyvyan Holland (born December 1945) is a British biographer and editor. He is the only grandchild of Oscar Wilde, whose life he has researched and written about extensively. Biography Born in London in December 1945, Christop ...

, wrote, "It was his decision fifty years ago to publish the first edition of Oscar Wilde's letters which helped to put my grandfather back into the position which he lost in 1895 as one of the most charismatic and fascinating figures in English literary history." In his last memoir, Hart-Davis listed the books he had edited as: ''The Second Omnibus Book'' (Heinemann) 1930; ''Then and Now'' (Cape) 1935; ''The Essential

Neville Cardus Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus, CBE (2 April 188828 February 1975) was an English writer and critic. From an impoverished home background, and mainly self-educated, he became ''The Manchester Guardian''s cricket correspondent in 1919 and it ...

'' (Cape) 1949; ''Cricket All His Life'' by

E.V. Lucas Edward Verrall Lucas, Companion of Honour, CH (11/12 June 1868 – 26 June 1938) was an English humorist, essayist, playwright, biographer, publisher, poet, novelist, short story writer and editor. Born to a Quaker family in Eltham, on the frin ...

(RHD Ltd) 1950; ''All in Due Time'' by Humphry House (RHD Ltd) 1955; ''George Moore: Letters to Lady Cunard 1895–1933'' (RHD Ltd) 1957; ''The Letters of Oscar Wilde'' (RHD Ltd) 1962; ''Max Beerbohm: Letters to Reggie Turner'' (RHD Ltd) 1964; ''More Theatres'' by Max Beerbohm (RHD Ltd) 1969; ''Last Theatres'' by Max Beerbohm (RHD Ltd) 1970; ''A Peep into the Past'' by Max Beerbohm (Heinemann) 1972; ''A Catalogue of the Caricatures of Max Beerbohm'' (Macmillan) 1972 ; ''The Autobiography of Arthur Ransome'' (Cape) 1976; ''Electric Delights'' by William Plomer (Cape) 1978; ''Selected Letters of Oscar Wilde'' (Oxford) 1979; ''Two Men of Letters'' (Michael Joseph) 1979; ''Siegfried Sassoon: Diaries 1920–1922'' 3 vols. (Faber) 1981–85; ''War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon'' (Faber) 1983; ''More Letters of Oscar Wilde'' (Murray) 1985; ''Siegfried Sassoon: Letters to Max Beerbohm'' (Faber) 1986; ''Letters of Max Beerbohm'' (Murray) 1986.

Ancestry and personal life

Hart-Davis was a great-great-great-grandson of

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

. William had several illegitimate children with his mistress, Dora Jordan. Their youngest daughter, Lady Elizabeth Fitzclarence, later Countess of Erroll, had daughters including Lady Agnes Hay. Lady Agnes married

James Duff, 5th Earl Fife James Duff, 5th Earl Fife, (6 July 1814 – 7 August 1879) was a Scottish nobleman. Early life Duff was the son of Sir Alexander Duff, younger brother of James Duff, 4th Earl Fife, and Anne Stein, the daughter of James Stein of Kilbagie and K ...

, and among their children was Lady Agnes Duff, who married

Sir Alfred Cooper Sir Alfred Cooper (28 January 1838 – 3 March 1908) was a fashionable English surgeon and clubman of the late 19th century whose patients included Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. Cooper was born in Bracondale, Norfolk, England, the son of ...

. Their children included Sybil Cooper, mother of Rupert Hart-Davis. While still an actor, Hart-Davis met the young

Peggy Ashcroft Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was deter ...

whom he married in 1929. The marriage was short-lived, ending in divorce in 1933, though the two remained warm friends until Ashcroft's death more than sixty years later. In November 1933 he married Catherine Comfort Borden-Turner (1910–1970), with whom he had a daughter in 1935, Bridget, who went on to marry

David Trustram Eve, 2nd Baron Silsoe David Malcolm Trustram Eve, 2nd Baron Silsoe QC, (2 May 1930 – 31 December 2005), who was known as David Silsoe, was a prominent British lawyer who succeeded to the title of Baron Silsoe in 1976 on the death of his father, Malcolm Eve, 1st Ba ...

, in 1963, and two sons, Duff in 1936, and the TV presenter

Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

in 1943. The second marriage became dysfunctional, although husband and wife remained on good terms and stayed together until their children were grown up, when Hart-Davis and Comfort divorced. In 1964 he married Ruth Simon, ''née'' Ware, with whom he had had a long-term relationship. After her death in 1967 he married June Williams in 1968, who outlived him. She died in 2017. After the war and until his retirement, Hart-Davis lived during the week in a flat above his publishing business in

, returning to his main home at Bromsden Farm,

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

, at weekends. He retired to Marske in North Yorkshire, where he died at the age of 92.

Public service and honours

From 1957 to 1969, Hart-Davis was chairman of the

London Library The London Library is an independent lending library in London, established in 1841. It was founded on the initiative of Thomas Carlyle, who was dissatisfied with some of the policies at the British Museum Library. It is located at 14 St James's ...

. During this period, a financial crisis arose when

Westminster City Council Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors. The council is currently composed of 31 Labour Party members and 23 Cons ...

decided that the library should no longer qualify for a charitable exemption from local property tax. Hart-Davis organised fund-raising on a grand scale, including an auction, with

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...

offering the manuscript of ''

A Passage to India ''A Passage to India'' is a 1924 novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English litera ...

'', and T. S. Eliot, a duplicate manuscript of ''

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the Octob ...

''. Hart-Davis was also secretary of The Literary Society and a member of

A. P. Herbert Sir Alan Patrick Herbert CH (A. P. Herbert, 24 September 1890 – 11 November 1971), was an English humorist, novelist, playwright, law reformist, and in 1935–1950 an independent Member of Parliament for Oxford University. Born in Ashtead, Su ...

's committee on censorship. Public honours included honorary doctorates from the universities of

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county *Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in No ...

and

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

and a knighthood in 1967 for services to literature. Twenty-two books were dedicated to him between 1936 and 1998, including works by H. E. Bates, Edmund Blunden, C. Day-Lewis, Ray Bradbury,

Lady Diana Cooper Diana, Viscountess Norwich (née Lady Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners; 29 August 1892 – 16 June 1986) was an English actress and aristocrat who was a well-known social figure in London and Paris. As a young woman, she moved in a celebrat ...

, Eric Linklater,

Compton Mackenzie Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish independence, Scottish nation ...

Anthony Powell Anthony Dymoke Powell ( ; 21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) was an English novelist best known for his 12-volume work ''A Dance to the Music of Time'', published between 1951 and 1975. It is on the list of longest novels in English. Powell' ...

and

Leon Edel Joseph Leon Edel (9 September 1907 – 5 September 1997) was an American/Canadian literary critic and biographer. He was the elder brother of North American philosopher Abraham Edel. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' calls Edel "the foremo ...

.Hart-Davis (1998), p. 157

's ''Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters'' (2003) was dedicated "To the memory of Rupert Hart-Davis, with love and gratitude."

Notes

References

*Hart-Davis, Rupert (ed): ''

'', Volume 2 (1956-7 letters), John Murray, 1979 and Vol 4 (1959 letters), John Murray, 1982 *Hart-Davis, Rupert: ''Halfway to Heaven'', Sutton Publishing Ltd, Stroud, 1998. *Lehmann, John (ed): ''The Craft of Letters in England: A Symposium'' Greenwood Publishing Group, 1974. *Holland, Merlin (ed): ''Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters'', Fourth Estate, London, 2003. *Norwich, John Julius (ed): ''The Duff Cooper Diaries'', Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2005. *Obituaries in ''The Daily Telegraph'', ''The Times'' an
''The Guardian''
December 1999 *Theroff, Paul: ''Theroff Files'' (j1d.txt), listing descendants of King James VI & I of England and Scotland. *Ziegler, Philip: ''Rupert Hart-Davis, Man of Letters'', Chatto and Windus, London, 2004.

External links

The Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters: Notes, references and biographiesHart-Davis family page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart-Davis, Rupert 1907 births 1999 deaths Military personnel from London British Army personnel of World War II British Army soldiers Coldstream Guards officers 20th-century British writers British book publishers (people) English book editors English letter writers English people of Scottish descent Publishers (people) from London Knights Bachelor People educated at Eton College People from Kensington Soho Square 20th-century English businesspeople