Hart-Davis, Rupert, 1907-1999

Dates

• Existence: 1907-08-28 - 1999-12-28

Biography

English publisher and editor.

Biography

Sir Rupert Hart-Davis was a gentleman-publisher, author, editor and bibliophile. His careers in publishing, editing and writing spanned nearly six decades. He started in publishing as an office boy at the publishing house of William Heinemann Ltd. in London in 1929. He later bought a stake in Jonathan Cape Ltd., which he joined as a director in 1933. He founded his own publishing company, Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd., in 1946. The company published books such as Gerald Durrell's "My Family and Other Animals," Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," which was dedicated to Sir Rupert, and Heinrich Harrer's "Seven Years in Tibet." The company became part of Heinemann, later being sold to other firms. Sir Rupert left it in 1968.

Hart-Davis was also the literary executor for authors Edmund Blunden, Sir Max Beerbohm, Sir Hugh Walpole, and the poet Siegfried Sassoon. He edited a number of volumes of their letters, diaries, and poems. He wrote a biography of Hugh Walpole in 1952 and a memoir in 1979. He also published six volumes of his own correspondence with George Lyttleton, his former housemaster at Eton.

The Rupert Hart-Davis Library was acquired by TU from Sir Rupert in 1983. The University took possession of the materials in December 1999 upon his death.

A common practice of Sir Rupert's was to place letters, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera into books. Hundreds of letters were removed by Lady Hart-Davis as the strain on the bindings increased, and hundreds of other letters, clippings, and notes have been removed from volumes by McFarlin catalogers. A few of the authors whose correspondence is represented include Rebecca West, W. Somerset Maugham, Edmund Wilson, and Richard Ellmann.

Found in 20 Collections and/or Records: