Richard Percival Lister
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Richard Percival Lister
FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
(23 November 1914 – 1 May 2014) was an English author, poet, artist and metallurgist.


Background and professional experience through World War II

He was born in Nottingham in 1914, and grew up in
West Didsbury Didsbury is a suburban area of Manchester, England, on the north bank of the River Mersey, south of Manchester city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 26,788. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, there are ...
and the
Peak District The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southe ...
of
Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
, and attended school in
New Mills New Mills is a town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England, south-east of Stockport and from Manchester at the confluence of the River Goyt and Sett. It is close to the border with Cheshire and above the Torrs, a deep gorge cut thro ...
, a Derbyshire town. In the 1930s he obtained a BSc in
Metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...
at
Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
and worked as a metallurgist at Samuel Fox's steelworks near
Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...
until
World War II 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 ...
broke out.Bucknell, Steve; MEMOIR. The Mystery of R. P. Lister; Able Muse – a review of poetry, prose and art – Winter 2010; , Able Muse Press (22 November 2010) During the war he worked in the Royal Naval Torpedo Factory in
Greenock Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council areas of Scotland, council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh of barony, burgh within the Counties of Scotland, historic ...
in Scotland, the
Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...
in
Farnborough, Hampshire Farnborough is a town in northeast Hampshire, England, part of the borough of Rushmoor and the Farnborough/Aldershot Built-up Area. Farnborough was founded in Anglo-Saxons, Saxon times and is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name is ...
, and the
Ministry of Aircraft Production Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ...
in London. In 1947–1949 he worked in liaison for the
British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association The British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association was a research group in the United Kingdom during the 20th century, bringing together public and privately funded research into metallurgy. The name was abbreviated officially to B.N.F.M.R.A. (th ...
.


Post-World War II

After an earlier marriage to Joyce Ambler, he married Ione Mary Wynniatt-Husey on 24 June 1985; she died in 1989. Apart from Lister's competence in technological matters, he has subsequently displayed various other talents; in 1950 he abandoned metallurgy for writing, publishing most of his works under the name R. P. Lister. They include prose novels, autobiographical accounts of travel and other experiences, historical works, and poetry, mainly light verse in various forms and idioms. Apart from his writings he later became in effect a professional artist in response to enthusiasm for his paintings. He also engaged in various related employments, such as in 1954–1957, when he worked as general editor at Macdonald & Evans Ltd, Publishers.


Writings

His published writings include:


Fiction

: The Way Backwards : Collins 1950. : The Oyster and the Torpedo : Jonathan Cape: London, 1951. : Rebecca Redfern : Andre Deutsch : London, 1953. : The Rhyme and the Reason : Victor Gollancz : London, 1963. : The Questing Beast, : Chapman & Hall : London, 1965. : One Short Summer : Milton House Books : Aylesbury, 1974. An entry a
Amazon Japan
for "Good Wives : Marboro Books 1990" either is an error, or by some other author of that name; R. P. Lister, the subject of this article, disclaimed either authorship or knowledge of any such work.


Verse

His output of verse includes several hundred poems published mainly in ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''Punch'', and ''The Atlantic Monthly'' (now called ''The Atlantic''). He anthologised some of those works in: : The Idle Demon. A collection of verses : Andre Deutsch: London, 1958. : Allotments : The Whittington Press : 1985. : The Albatross : London : Dorricott, 1986. He wrote and published regularly until the 1980s when he became more active painting, proofreading and editing, until 2010 when he reappeared as the featured poet in ''
Able Muse ''Able Muse'' is a literary magazine established in 1999 by editor-in-chief Alexander Pepple in San Jose, California. It started as an online publication, publishing poems, short stories, essays, book reviews, art, and photography from authors wo ...
'', Inaugural Print Edition, with interview and some new poems.


Travel

His books on travel were highly personal, even autobiographical, and he largely illustrated them himself: : A Journey in Lapland. The hard way to Haparanda. (Illustrations by the author) : Chapman & Hall: London, 1965. (Reprinted by Travel Book Club 1965.) : A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness Cries : Harcourt 1967. Reprinted by Travel Book Club as "Turkey Observed"; : Turkey Observed, 1968 : Travel Book Club. : Glimpses of a Planet, London : Pauline Dorricott Books, 1997.


History and Biography

: The Secret History of Genghis Khan : London: Peter Davies, 1969. : Marco Polo's Travels (in Xanadu With Kublai Khan) : Macmillan 1976. : The Travels of Herodotus : Gordon and Cremonesi, 1979.


Short Story Collections

: Nine Legends : Pauline Dorricott, 1991. : Two Northern Stories, London : Pauline Dorricott, 1996.


Personal faith

: Me and the Holy Spirit : London : Pauline Dorricott Books, 1999.


Recognition and activities

Lister's major honour was being voted in as Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
(
FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
) 1970. During his most active period of writing, the 1950s to the 1980s, he also produced a variety of essays and reviews, largely for the same genre of magazines as he frequently wrote poetry for, but also for the likes of the ''New Statesman and Nation'' in the 1950s His own works were reviewed in similar publications during those times, and also in more specialised publications such as ''The Library journal book review'', On entering the field of professional literature, Lister did not immediately give up writing on matters in his field of technical competence; as late as 1955 at least, he was writing semi-technical articles on metallurgy. His poetic works have appeared in anthologies for many years, such as ''The Revolutionaries'' and ''The Idle Demon'', and ''A Toast to 2000'', ''A Mind Reborn in Streatham Common.'' and ''
Defenestration Defenestration (from Modern Latin ) is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year 1618 which became the spark that started the Thirty Years' War. Th ...
'' Something about the word "defenestration" apparently tickles popular humour; the poem seems to be the most popularly quoted of Lister's light verse, and it was set to music by the group
Instant Sunshine Instant Sunshine is a comedy musical cabaret group who sing to an acoustic guitar accompaniment. It was formed in 19662008-07-26 by three doctors at St Thomas' Hospital in London, Peter Christie, David Barlow and Alan Maryon-Davis. In 1972 the ...
. Its erudite tone certainly suits that group's witty and whimsical idiom.


Painting

In 2010 Lister occasionally still wrote poetry, although his main endeavour from about 1980 on was painting. He explained in the introduction to ''Nine Legends'':Lister, R. P.; ''Nine Legends''; Publisher: Pauline Dorricott (1991) “In 1980 people started buying my paintings, so I took to painting in all the time I had available to me. Painting from then on occupied me happily and kept me alive for the next ten years.” On inspecting two of his works shown in his attached portrait, one might suspect that this unlooked-for success in a competitive field could stem partly from a curious talent for combining a playful presentation with serious background material, such as clouds and mountains that are rendered with conviction in paintings that initially give an impression of a childlike style. His readers might find it worth contemplating that aspect in analogy to his writing style; practically everything Lister produced in any medium had something serious at the core.


Notes


References


External links


Lister thread at Ablemuse

R. P. Lister Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lister, Richard Percival 1914 births British historians 20th-century British painters British male painters 21st-century British painters British travel writers British metallurgists British male poets 20th-century British poets Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature 20th-century British male writers 20th-century British male artists 21st-century British male artists