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''. Working at a publishing firm before the

Second World War 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 ...

, 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 an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around 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 by Kensingt ...

, 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.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 and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

, 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, 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 Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

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

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

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. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...

, to the humorist Beachcomber. 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 and writer. First elected to Parl ...

'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 an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were b ...

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 (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His ...

and Arthur Ransome, 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 Cape's death in 1960 Hart-Davis 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 of the United Kingdom, monarchy; due to this, it often ...

. 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 and Teddy Young and with financial backing from Eric Linklater, Arthur Ransome, H. E. Bates, Geoffrey Keynes, and Celia and Peter Fleming. His own literary tastes dictated which books were accepted and which 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's '' Gamesmanship'' 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's '' Seven Years in Tibet'', 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 genres, including fantasy, science fiction, Horror fiction, horr ...

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 Order of the British Empire, OBE (7 January 1925 – 30 January 1995) was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservation movement, conservationist, and television presenter. He was born in Jamshedpur in British Ind ...

; 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's biography of

Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (3 August 186714 December 1947), was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was prominent in the political leadership of the United Kingdom between the world wars. He was prime ministe ...

was published in 1952; both

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

and Lord Beaverbrook 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 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. It was known at different stages in its history as Harcourt Brace, & Co. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. From 1919 to 1 ...

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 leasehold estate, let by the Soho Square Garden Committee to Westminster City Council. It was originally called King Square after Charles II of Engla ...

, 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 ...

'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, 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 statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...

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 Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters, 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'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

, the writer and caricaturist

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

, 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 (World War I), Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World ...

and the autobiography of Arthur Ransome. ''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, 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, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 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 Gua ...

'' (Cape) 1949; ''Cricket All His Life'' by E.V. Lucas (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 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, and among their children was Lady Agnes Duff, who married Sir Alfred Cooper. Their children included Sybil Cooper, mother of Rupert Hart-Davis. While still an actor, Hart-Davis met the young Peggy Ashcroft 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. They had a daughter in 1935, Bridget, who went on to marry David Trustram Eve, 2nd Baron Silsoe, in 1963, and two sons, Duff in 1936, and the TV presenter

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

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 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, 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 ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

, 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. 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. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in London. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2022. Full council meetings ...

decided that the library should no longer qualify for charitable exemption from local property tax. Hart-Davis organised fund-raising on a grand scale, including an auction, with E. M. Forster offering the manuscript of '' A Passage to India'', and T. S. Eliot, a duplicate manuscript of '' The Waste Land''. Hart-Davis was also secretary of The Literary Society and a member of A. P. Herbert's committee on censorship. Public honours included honorary doctorates from the universities of Durham and

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

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, Eric Linklater, Compton Mackenzie, '' Books Do Furnish a Room'' by

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.Hart-Davis (1998), p. 157 Merlin Holland'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): '' Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters'', 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 the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea British Army personnel of World War II British Army soldiers Coldstream Guards officers 20th-century British writers 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 British book publishing company founders