Robert Ian Hamilton (24 March 1938 – 27 December 2001) was a British literary critic, reviewer, biographer, poet, magazine editor and publisher.
Early life and education
He was born in
King's Lynn
King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is north-east of Peterborough, north-north-east of Cambridg ...
,
Norfolk
Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
, England. His parents were
Scottish and had moved to Norfolk in 1936. The family moved to
Darlington
Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. It lies on the River Skerne, west of Middlesbrough and south of Durham. Darlington had a population of 107,800 at the 2021 Census, making it a "large town" ...
in 1951.
Hamilton's civil engineer father died a few months later.
A keen soccer player, Hamilton was diagnosed with a heart complaint at the age of 15. Unable to play games, he developed his interest in poetry. At the age of 17, in
sixth form
In the education systems of Barbados, England, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, Wales, and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepa ...
at
Darlington Grammar School, Hamilton produced two issues of his own magazine, which was called ''The Scorpion''. For the second issue, he sent a questionnaire to various literary figures in London asking if there was any advice they could give young authors. Around 50 or so replies were received from figures such as
Louis Golding.
After leaving school, Hamilton did his
National Service
National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...
in
Mönchengladbach
Mönchengladbach (, ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany, west of the Rhine, halfway between Düsseldorf and the Netherlands, Dutch border.
Geography Municipal subdivisions
Since 2009, th ...
, Germany. He then attended
Keble College, Oxford
Keble College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University Museum a ...
, and within a year started a magazine ''Tomorrow''. The first issues were patchy, but the magazine grew in confidence, publishing an early play by
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A List of Nobel laureates in Literature, Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramat ...
in its fourth and final issue.
Career
In 1962, Hamilton started ''The Review'' magazine, with
Michael Fried,
John Fuller and
Colin Falck. ''The Review'' became the most influential postwar British poetry magazine, publishing a wide variety of writers and both short and long pieces. It ran until its 10th-anniversary issue in 1972.
In 1964 ''The Review'' published a pamphlet of Hamilton's poems entitled ''Pretending Not to Sleep.'' It was one of three pamphlets that made up issue no. 13 of ''The Review''.
In 1965, to make ends meet, Hamilton took a three-day-a-week job at ''
The Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'', which soon grew to be the position of poetry and fiction editor, a post he held until 1973.
In 1970,
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...
published ''
The Visit'', a slender book of Hamilton's poems. This was a somewhat reworked and expanded version of the 1964 pamphlet. The 33 poems contained in ''The Visit'' all reflect Hamilton's concise writing style. Hamilton subsequently spoke about the relationship between the stressful circumstances of his personal life – in particular the mental illness of his wife – and the brevity of the poems. "You had to keep your control however bad things were; you had to be in charge. And I suppose the perfect poem became something that had to contain the maximum amount of control – and of suffering."
In 1974, Hamilton started ''The New Review'', a large-format glossy magazine. Its first issue was 100 pages and featured many well-known writers. Again, it was influential in literary circles, and encouraged younger writers. But the magazine depended on
Arts Council
An arts council is a government or private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts; mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing arts events. They often operate at arms-length from the government to prevent pol ...
funding, and when that stopped, four and half years and 50 issues later, ''The New Review'' closed. Hamilton then wrote freelance, including regularly for the ''
New Statesman
''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
''.
In 1976, another pamphlet of poems by Hamilton appeared, entitled ''Returning'', which contained 12 new poems.
After his friend poet
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...
died in 1977, Hamilton wrote a biography of him, which was well received. Encouraged by that, Hamilton began writing a biography and critique of
J. D. Salinger. Famously averse to publicity, Salinger took legal action in ''
Salinger v. Random House'' to prevent the book being published and was successful in denying Hamilton the right to quote from his letters or paraphrase them. Hamilton, however, was able to incorporate these frustrations into the book, entitled ''In Search of J.D. Salinger''.
From 1984 to 1987, Hamilton presented the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
''
Bookmark'' television programme, featuring many well-known writers.
In 1988, Faber published a new collection of his verse: ''Fifty Poems.'' This included the poems previously published in ''The Visit'', together with 11 of the poems from ''Returning'' and six new poems. In the preface Hamilton wrote: "Fifty poems in twenty-five years: not much to show for half a lifetime, you might think. And in certain moods, I would agree." Ten years later, Faber published ''Sixty Poems'', again matching his age, and these also incorporated earlier poems.
In 1989, he guest-edited the second number of the literary magazine ''Soho Square'', published by
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
.
His experience with Salinger inspired ''Keepers of the Flame'', Hamilton's 1992 book about the history of literary estates and unofficial biographers. His love of
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
led him to write ''Gazza Agonistes'' and ''Gazza Italia'' in 1993 and 1994, about
Paul Gascoigne's seemingly wasted talent.
In 1999, Cargo Press published ''Another Round At The Pillars'', a collection of "essays, poems and reflections on Ian Hamilton" to celebrate his 60th birthday, with contributions from a range of prominent authors and poets, including
Julian Barnes
Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with ''The Sense of an Ending'', having been shortlisted three times previously with ''Flaubert's Parrot'', ''England, England'', and ''Arthu ...
,
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan (born 21 June 1948) is a British novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of the ...
,
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A List of Nobel laureates in Literature, Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramat ...
and
Clive James
Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.[Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...]
as his inspiration, he chose 45 dead 20th-century poets and assessed their achievement with his customary economy and wit. The book was published posthumously.
Hamilton died of cancer in 2001 in London. His first wife, Gisela Dietzel, and their son Matthew Hamilton survive him, as does his second wife
Ahdaf Soueif and their two sons, and his long-term partner, Patricia Wheatley, by whom he had a son and daughter, Catherine and William Hamilton.
In 2002, Between the Lines published ''Ian Hamilton in Conversation with Dan Jacobson'', in which the novelist and academic
Dan Jacobson interviewed Hamilton about his life and career.
In 2009
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...
published his ''Collected Poems'', with an introduction by
Alan Jenkins.
A selection of Hamilton's books by other poets were donated to
Keble College, Oxford
Keble College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University Museum a ...
, where they are accessible to students as the Ian Hamilton Poetry Library.
The critic
James Wood includes an anecdote about Wood in his study ''The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel'' (2004):
One London lunchtime, many years ago, the late poet and editor Ian Hamilton was sitting at his usual table in a Soho pub called the Pillars of Hercules
The Pillars of Hercules are the promontory, promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar, Calpe Mons, is the Rock of Gibraltar. A corresponding North African peak not being predominant, the identity of ...
. The pub was where much of the business of Hamilton's literary journal, ''The New Review'', was conducted. It was sickeningly early—not to be at work, but to be at drink. A pale, haggard poet entered, and Hamilton offered him a chair and a glass of something. "Oh no, I just can’t keep drinking," said the weakened poet. "I must give it up. It's doing terrible things to me. It's not even giving me any pleasure any longer." But Hamilton, narrowing his eyes, responded to this feebleness in a tone of weary stoicism, and said in a quiet, hard voice, "Well, none of us ''likes'' it."
The author
Andrew O'Hagan recounts a near-identical story, but with Hamilton's rebuttal delivered to a "whey-faced" newspaper writer rather than a poet.
Bibliography
* ''Pretending Not to Sleep'' (1964), poetry pamphlet
* ''The Visit'' (1970), poetry book
* ''A Poetry Chronicle'' (1973), essays and reviews
* ''Returning'' (1976), poetry pamphlet
* ''The Little Magazines: A Study of Six Editors'' (1976)
* ''Robert Lowell: A Biography'' (1982)
* ''In Search of J.D. Salinger'' (1988), biography and critique
* ''Fifty Poems'' (1988), poetry collection
* ''Writers in Hollywood 1915–1951'' (1990)
* ''Keepers of the Flame'' (1992), on literary estates
* ''Gazza Agonistes'' (1993), on
Paul Gascoigne
* ''Gazza Italia'' (1994), on Paul Gascoigne
* ''Walking Possession'' (1994), essays and reviews
* ''Oxford Companion to 20th-Century Poetry'' (1994), as editor
* ''Steps'' (1997), poetry
* ''A Gift Imprisoned: The Poetic Life of Matthew Arnold'' (1998)
* ''Sixty Poems'' (1998), poetry collection
* ''The Trouble with Money'' (1998), essays
* ''Against Oblivion: Some Lives of the Twentieth-Century Poets'' (2002)
References
*
External links
*
Review of Hamilton's book ''Robert Lowell: A Biography''''
The Boston Phoenix''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Ian
1938 births
2001 deaths
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English poets
Alumni of Keble College, Oxford
Anglo-Scots
Deaths from cancer in England
English male poets
English people of Scottish descent
People from Darlington
People from King's Lynn