Noel Lewis Carrington (1895 – 11 April 1989) was an English book designer, editor, publisher, and the founder of

Puffin Books Puffin Books is a longstanding children's imprint of the British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s, it has been among the largest publishers of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. The imprint now belongs to ...

. He was the author of books on design and on recreation and also worked for

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

and

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

. In the 1920s he went out to India on behalf of OUP to establish a branch office there.

Biography

The son of railway engineer Samuel Carrington and Charlotte (née Houghton), and brother of the artist

Dora Carrington Dora de Houghton Carrington (29 March 1893 – 11 March 1932), known generally as Carrington, was an English painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytt ...

, Noel Carrington was born in

Hereford Hereford ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of the ceremonial county of Herefordshire, England. It is on the banks of the River Wye and lies east of the border with Wales, north-west of Gloucester and south-west of Worcester. With ...

in 1895. He was educated at

Bedford School Bedford School is a 7–18 Single-sex education, boys Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the county town of Bedford in England. Founded in 1552, it is the oldest of four independent schools in Bedford run by the Harpur Trust. Bed ...

and at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

. In 1925 Noel Carrington married Catharine Alexander (1904–2004), who had been a student at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. They had three children, Paul,

Joanna Joanna is a feminine given name deriving from from . Variants in English include Joan, Joann, Joanne, and Johanna. Other forms of the name in English are Jan, Jane, Janet, Janice, Jean, and Jeanne. The earliest recorded occurrence of th ...

and Jane, and lived in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...

until soon after 1945 when they moved to Lambourn,

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

, to farm at Long Acre. Some of Noel Carrington's correspondence with his sister Dora has been published. He died on 11 April 1989, aged 94.

Oxford University Press

Geoffrey Cumberlege and Noel Carrington replaced E. V. Rieu in the management of the Indian branches of Oxford University Press in 1920. Noel got Dora to illustrate his ''Stories Retold'' edition of ''

Don Quixote , the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...

'' for the Indian market. Their father, Samuel Carrington, had been a railway engineer in India in the nineteenth century. Noel Carrington's unpublished memoir of his six years in India is in the Oriental and India Office Collections of the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

. By 1915 there were makeshift depots at Madras and Calcutta. In 1920 Noel Carrington went to Calcutta to set up a proper branch. There he became friendly with Edward Thompson who involved him in the abortive scheme to produce the 'Oxford Book of Bengali Verse'.Rimi B. Chatterjee, 'Canon Without Consensus: Rabindranath Tagore and the "Oxford Book of Bengali Verse"'. ''Book History'' 4:303-33.

Selected publications

*1933: ''Broadway and the Cotswolds'', ed. by Noel Carrington. Birmingham: Printed & published for the Lygon Arms, Broadway by the Kynoch Press *1933: ''Design in the Home'' *1943 - 1946 ''Achievement Books''. London: Pilot Press *1950: ''Camping by Water''; ed. by Noel Carrington and Patricia Cavendish. London: Peter Davies *1954: ''Colour and Pattern in the Home''. London: B.T. Batsford. 1954 *1978: ''Carrington: paintings, drawings and decorations''. Oxford: Polytechnic Press ; (Carrington =

; limited ed. of 1,000 copies; collector's ed. of 100 copies)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carrington, Noel 1895 births 1989 deaths People educated at Bedford School Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford English book editors English book publishers (people) Oxford University Press people Penguin Books people People from Hereford 20th-century English businesspeople