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Rupert Hart-Davis

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Rupert Hart-Davis
Born(1907-08-28)28 August 1907
Died8 December 1999(1999-12-08)(aged 92)
Spouses
​
​
(m.1929;div.1933)​
Catherine Comfort Borden-Turner
​
​
(m.1933, divorced)​
Ruth Simon Ware
​
​
(m.1964; died 1967)​
June Williams
​
(m.1968)​
Children3, includingDuffandAdam
RelativesDeirdre Hart-Davis(sister)
Duff Cooper(uncle)
Alfred Cooper(grandfather)

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 hisHugh Walpole(1952), as an editor, for hisCollected Letters of Oscar Wilde(1962), and, as both editor and part-author, for theLyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters.

Working at a publishing firm before theSecond World War,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[edit]

Early years[edit]

Hart-Davis was born inKensington,London. He was legally the son of Richard Hart-Davis, a stockbroker, and his wife SybilnéeCooper, 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 calledGervase Beckett.[1]As a child, Rupert Hart-Davis and his sisterDeirdre Hart-Daviswere drawn byAugustus Johnand painted byWilliam Nicholson(1912).[2]

Hart-Davis was educated atEtonandBalliol College, Oxford,though he found university life not to his taste and left after less than a year.[1]

Hart-Davis decided to become an actor, and he studied atThe 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, joiningWilliam 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 atJonathan Cape Ltd.[3]

In his seven years with Cape, Hart-Davis recruited a successful group of authors ranging from the poetsWilliam Plomer,Cecil Day-Lewis,Edmund BlundenandRobert Frost,to the humoristBeachcomber.He was well placed to secureDuff Cooper's life ofTalleyrand,as Cooper was his uncle.[3]As the junior partner at Cape, he had to handle their difficult authors includingRobert Graves,Wyndham LewisandArthur 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 Herbert Jonathan Cape's death in 1960 he commented toGeorge Lytteltonthat Cape had been "one of the tightest-fisted old bastards I've ever encountered".[4]The second partner,Wren Howard,was "even tighter" than Cape,[4]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 theColdstream Guards.He did not see active service, never being stationed more than 25 miles from London.[5]

Independent publisher[edit]

Main article:Publications by Rupert Hart-Davis

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 withDavid GarnettandTeddy Youngand with financial backing fromEric Linklater,Arthur Ransome,H. E. Bates,Geoffrey Keynes,andCeliaandPeter Fleming.His own literary tastes dictated which books were accepted and which were 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."[6]

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 forStephen Potter'sGamesmanshipwhich was a short book, collected every ream of paper they could buy and printed 25,000 copies. Likewise 25,000 copies of Eric Linklater'sSealskin Trousers(five short stories) were printed.[7]

The firm had best-sellers such asGamesmanshipandHeinrich Harrer'sSeven Years in Tibet,which sold more than 200,000 copies.[8]Also in the early years Hart-Davis securedRay Bradburyfor his firm, recognising the quality of a science fiction author who also wrote poetry.[9]Other good sellers were Peter Fleming, Eric Linklater andGerald Durrell;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.[10]A further expense was added whenG. M. Young's biography ofStanley Baldwinwas published in 1952; bothWinston ChurchillandLord Beaverbrookthreatened to sue if certain passages were not removed or amended. With the help of the lawyerArnold Goodmanan 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.[11]

By the mid-fifties, Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd could no longer sustain an independent existence and in 1956 it was absorbed into theHeinemanngroup.[12]Heinemann sold the imprint to the American firmHarcourt Bracein 1961, who sold it to theGranada Groupin 1963, when Hart-Davis retired from publishing, though remaining as non-executive chairman until 1968.[1]Granada merged Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd with sister imprint MacGibbon & Kee in 1972 to formHart-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. 36Soho Square,London W1. Reprint series published over the years were theReynard Libraryof great English writers and theMariners Libraryof nautical books.

Author[edit]

AsHugh Walpole'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 whichHarold Macmillanreplied that he couldn't think of a better person to do it.[13]WhenHugh Walpolewas published in 1952, it was praised as "among the half dozen best biographies of the century".[14]It has been reissued several times.

The 6 volumes of the Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters

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 schoolmasterGeorge Lyttelton,which, together with Lyttelton's similar contribution, made up the six volumes of theLyttelton/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.[15]He was equally unscholarly about his uncle Duff Cooper's diaries, whose frankness shocked him so much that he wanted to destroy them.[16]

In retirement, Hart-Davis wrote three volumes of autobiography entitledThe 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.[8]

Editor[edit]

Hart-Davis was described byThe Timesas "the king of editors".[8]He edited volumes of the letters of the playwrightOscar Wilde,the writer and caricaturistMax Beerbohm,and the writerGeorge Moore,as well as the diaries of the poetSiegfried Sassoonand the autobiography ofArthur 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.

HisComplete 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".[17]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."[18]

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 EssentialNeville Cardus(Cape) 1949;Cricket All His LifebyE.V. Lucas(RHD Ltd) 1950;All in Due Timeby Humphry House (RHD Ltd) 1955;George Moore: Letters toLady Cunard1895–1933(RHD Ltd) 1957;The Letters of Oscar Wilde(RHD Ltd) 1962;Max Beerbohm: Letters toReggie Turner(RHD Ltd) 1964;More Theatresby Max Beerbohm (RHD Ltd) 1969;Last Theatresby Max Beerbohm (RHD Ltd) 1970;A Peep into the Pastby Max Beerbohm (Heinemann) 1972;A Catalogue of the Caricatures of Max Beerbohm(Macmillan) 1972;The Autobiography of Arthur Ransome(Cape) 1976;Electric Delightsby William Plomer (Cape) 1978;Selected Letters of Oscar Wilde(Oxford) 1979;Two Men of Letters(Michael Joseph) 1979;Siegfried Sassoon: Diaries 1920–19223 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.[19]

Ancestry and personal life[edit]

Hart-Davis was a great-great-great-grandson ofWilliam 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 marriedJames Duff, 5th Earl Fife,and among their children was Lady Agnes Duff, who marriedSir Alfred Cooper.Their children included Sybil Cooper, mother of Rupert Hart-Davis.[20]

While still an actor, Hart-Davis met the youngPeggy Ashcroftwhom 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 (1910–1970), daughter of George Douglas Turner and Mary Borden, who lived in America.[21][22][23]They had a daughter in 1935, Bridget, who went on to marryDavid Trustram Eve, 2nd Baron Silsoe,in 1963, and two sons,Duffin 1936, and the TV presenterAdamin 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.[24]

After the war and until his retirement, Hart-Davis lived during the week in a flat above his publishing business inSoho Square,returning to his main home at Bromsden Farm,Oxfordshire,at weekends. He retired toMarskein North Yorkshire, where he died at the age of 92.[1]

Public service and honours[edit]

From 1957 to 1969, Hart-Davis was chairman of theLondon Library.During this period, a financial crisis arose whenWestminster City Councildecided that the library should no longer qualify for a charitable exemption from local property tax. Hart-Davis organised fund-raising on a grand scale, including an auction, withE. M. Forsteroffering the manuscript ofA Passage to India,andT. S. Eliot,a duplicate manuscript ofThe Waste Land.[3]Hart-Davis was also secretary ofThe Literary Societyand a member ofA. P. Herbert's committee on censorship.[25]

Public honours included honorary doctorates from the universities ofDurhamandReadingand 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 RoombyAnthony Powell[26]andLeon Edel.[27]Merlin Holland'sOscar Wilde: A Life in Letters(2003) was dedicated "To the memory of Rupert Hart-Davis, with love and gratitude."

Notes[edit]

  1. ^abcdNorwich, John Julius,"Davis, Sir Rupert Charles Hart- (1907–1999)",Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 29 November 2008
  2. ^"Rupert and Deirdre Hart-Davis as Children (also known as Children of Mr. and Mrs. Hart-Davis)".The Athenaeum.Archived fromthe originalon 22 January 2018.Retrieved21 January2018.
  3. ^abcThe Timesobituary, 9 December 1999
  4. ^abHart-Davis, Volume 4, letter of 20 February 1960
  5. ^Ziegler, p. 117
  6. ^Ziegler, p. 138
  7. ^Hart-Davis (1998), p. 6f
  8. ^abcThe Times,29 November 1979, p. 15
  9. ^Ziegler, p. 148
  10. ^Ziegler, p. 144
  11. ^Hart-Davis (1998), p. 38
  12. ^"Mr Bernstein buys book firm" inThe Times,11 September 1963, p. 10.
  13. ^Hart-Davis, Volume 2, letter of 12 January 1957
  14. ^Lehmann,J. I. M. Stewart's chapter on biography
  15. ^Ziegler, p. 269
  16. ^Norwich, introduction, p. ix
  17. ^A. C. GraylinginThe Independent on Sunday,30 September 2001, p. 17.
  18. ^Holland, p. x
  19. ^Hart-Davis (1998) unnumbered introductory page following title page
  20. ^Theroff, Paul: Theroff Files (j1d.txt), listing descendants of King James VI & I of England and Scotland.
  21. ^Catalogue of the Rupert Hart-Davis Papers, Durham University URL=https://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=ark/32150_s2k0698751b.xml
  22. ^Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage, Debrett's Ltd, 1971, p. 2206
  23. ^Who Was Who 1996-2000, St Martin's Press, 1996, p. 252
  24. ^Obituary,telegraph.co.uk. Accessed 11 January 2023.
  25. ^Hart-Davis, Volume 4, letter of 20 December 1958
  26. ^Jay, Mike. (2013) "Who Were the Dedicatees of Powell’s Works?"The Anthony Powell Society Newsletter.50 (spring): 9-10.
  27. ^Hart-Davis (1998), p. 157

References[edit]

  • Hart-Davis, Rupert (ed):Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters,Volume 2 (1956-7 letters), John Murray, 1979ISBN0-7195-3673-1and Vol 4 (1959 letters), John Murray, 1982ISBN0-7195-3941-2
  • Hart-Davis, Rupert:Halfway to Heaven,Sutton Publishing Ltd, Stroud, 1998.ISBN0-7509-1837-3
  • Lehmann, John (ed):The Craft of Letters in England: A SymposiumGreenwood Publishing Group, 1974.ISBN978-0-8371-7410-5
  • Holland, Merlin (ed):Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters,Fourth Estate, London, 2003.ISBN0-00-716103-4
  • Norwich, John Julius (ed):The Duff Cooper Diaries,Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2005.ISBN0-297-84843-7
  • Obituaries inThe Daily Telegraph,The TimesandThe 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.ISBN0-7011-7320-3

External links[edit]

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