George Duncan Painter OBE (5 June 1914 – 8 December 2005), known as George D. Painter, was an English author most famous as a biographer of

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...

Career

Painter was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, England. His father was a schoolmaster, and his mother was an artist. He studied classics at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, and later lectured in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

at the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

for one year. From 1938 until

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and again after the war, he took a position as deputy curator of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

's incunabula department. His two-volume biography of Proust was published in 1959 and 1965. According to Miron Grindea, this was "rightly greeted as one of the great achievements in literary history", and it is still widely considered to be one of the finest literary biographies in the English language.Smith, Dinitia (2000-04-13) "Why Proust? And Why Now?", ''The New York Times''. Its second volume won the Duff Cooper Prize. His later work ''Chateaubriand: Volume 1 – The Longed-For Tempests'' was awarded the 1977

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Un ...

In popular culture

*His poem "The Lobster" was adapted into a song by the English folk-rock band

Fairport Convention Fairport Convention are an English British folk rock, folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson (musician), Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Marti ...

, on their self-titled debut album.

Bibliography

*1951: ''

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French writer and author whose writings spanned a wide variety of styles and topics. He was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. Gide's career ranged from his begi ...

: A Critical and Biographical Study''Details taken from a copy of ''Marcel Proust: a biography'', London: Chatto and Windus (1959) - no ISBN London: Arthur Barker **Revised and enlarged. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1968) **Translations into French (1968) and Italian (1969) *1951: ''The Road to Sinodun: A Winter and Summer Monodrama'' (poems) London: Rupert Hart-Davis *1953: ''

: Marshlands and Prometheus Misbound: two satires''. London: Secker & Warburg (translation) *1956: ''Marcel Proust: Letters to His Mother'' (translation) London: Rider *1959: ''

: A Biography''. Volume 1. London: Chatto & Windus, *1965: ''

: A Biography''. Volume 2. London: Chatto & Windus **Translations into German (1962 & 1968), Italian (1965), French (1966), Spanish (1967), and Polish (1972) *1965: ''The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation'' (with R. A. Skelton and Thomas E. Marston). New Haven: Yale University Press. Painter contributed: ''The Tartar Relation'', edited, with introduction, translation and commentary; ''The Tartar Relation and the Vinland Map: an interpretation'' (New ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. ) *1976: ''

William Caxton William Caxton () was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into Kingdom of England, England in 1476, and as a Printer (publishing), printer to be the first English retailer ...

: A Quincentenary Biography of England's First Printer''. London: Chatto & Windus, *1977: '' Chateaubriand: A Biography''. Volume 1, ''1768–93, The Longed-For Tempests''. London: Chatto & Windus,

References

External links

"George Painter"
Fellows Remembered, The Royal Society of Literature {{DEFAULTSORT:Painter, George 1914 births 2005 deaths People educated at King Edward VI Aston School Academics of the University of Liverpool James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Employees of the British Library 20th-century English biographers Officers of the Order of the British Empire