Holbrook Jackson
Encyclopedia
George Holbrook Jackson (31 December 1874 – 16 June 1948) was a British journalist, writer and publisher. He was recognised as one of the leading bibliophiles of his time.
, England. He worked as a clerk, while freelancing as a writer. Around 1900 he was in the lace
trade in Leeds
, where he met A. R. Orage; together they founded the Leeds Arts Club
. At that time Jackson was a Fabian socialist, but also influenced by Nietzsche. It was Jackson who introduced Orage to Nietzsche, lending him a copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra in 1900.
Later they separately moved to London as journalists. In 1906, shortly after arriving in the capital, Jackson suggested founding a similar group to the Leeds Arts Club, the Fabian Arts Group. This eventually led to a split from the Fabian Society
, whose interest was economic and political. In 1907, Jackson and Orage bought The New Age
, a struggling Christian Socialist weekly magazine, with finance from Lewis Wallace and George Bernard Shaw
.
Initially Jackson and Orage co-edited, with Jackson setting the editorial line with Cecil Chesterton
and Clifford Sharp
(later the editor of the New Statesman
). In 1908 Jackson left and Orage continued as sole editor. Around this time, Orage's wife left him for Jackson, but refused to divorce Orage.
From 1911 Jackson had an editorial position on T. P. O'Connor
's T.P.'s Weekly, a newspaper with a strong literary emphasis. He took over as editor from Wilfred Whitten
in 1914. Later he bought the publication, and converted it into his own literary magazine, To-Day, which was published 1917 to 1923, when it merged with Life and Letters
.
At the same period he set up in 1912 or 1913 the Flying Fame Press, with the poet Ralph Hodgson
and designer Claud Lovat Fraser
. This was the beginning of a long association with small press
and the worlds of typography
and book collecting
, on which he wrote extensively. He was in the short-lived Fleuron Society (1923) with Stanley Morison
, Francis Meynell
, Bernard Newdigate and Oliver Simon. He did more, as a patron of the Pelican Press
amongst others, to encourage the raising of production standards of books.
After World War I
Jackson introduced Orage to C. H. Douglas
, who subsequently wrote economics articles for The New Age, expounding his theory of Social Credit
.
Biography
Holbrook Jackson was born in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, England. He worked as a clerk, while freelancing as a writer. Around 1900 he was in the lace
Lace
Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. Lace-making is an ancient craft. True lace was...
trade in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, where he met A. R. Orage; together they founded the Leeds Arts Club
Leeds Arts Club
The Leeds Arts Club was founded in 1903 by the Leeds school teacher Alfred Orage and Yorkshire textile manufacture Holbrook Jackson, and was probably one of the most advanced centres for modernist thinking in Britain in the pre-First World War period.-History:...
. At that time Jackson was a Fabian socialist, but also influenced by Nietzsche. It was Jackson who introduced Orage to Nietzsche, lending him a copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra in 1900.
Later they separately moved to London as journalists. In 1906, shortly after arriving in the capital, Jackson suggested founding a similar group to the Leeds Arts Club, the Fabian Arts Group. This eventually led to a split from the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
, whose interest was economic and political. In 1907, Jackson and Orage bought The New Age
The New Age
The New Age was a British literary magazine, noted for its wide influence under the editorship of A. R. Orage from 1907 to 1922. It began life in 1894 as a publication of the Christian Socialist movement; but in 1907 as a radical weekly edited by Joseph Clayton, it was struggling...
, a struggling Christian Socialist weekly magazine, with finance from Lewis Wallace and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
.
Initially Jackson and Orage co-edited, with Jackson setting the editorial line with Cecil Chesterton
Cecil Chesterton
Cecil Edward Chesterton was an English journalist and political commentator, known particularly for his role as editor of The New Witness from 1912 to 1916, and in relation to its coverage of the Marconi scandal....
and Clifford Sharp
Clifford Sharp
Clifford Sharp was a British journalist, the first editor of the New Statesman magazine from its foundation in 1913 until 1928.He had previously edited The Crusade....
(later the editor of the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
). In 1908 Jackson left and Orage continued as sole editor. Around this time, Orage's wife left him for Jackson, but refused to divorce Orage.
From 1911 Jackson had an editorial position on T. P. O'Connor
T. P. O'Connor
Thomas Power O'Connor , known as T. P. O'Connor and occasionally as Tay Pay, was a journalist, an Irish nationalist political figure, and a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for nearly fifty years.-Biography:O'Connor was born in...
's T.P.'s Weekly, a newspaper with a strong literary emphasis. He took over as editor from Wilfred Whitten
Wilfred Whitten
Wilfred Whitten was a British writer and editor. His pseudonym was John O'London, from where the influential John O'London's Weekly obtained its name....
in 1914. Later he bought the publication, and converted it into his own literary magazine, To-Day, which was published 1917 to 1923, when it merged with Life and Letters
Life and Letters
Life and Letters was an English literary journal published between June 1928 and April 1935.The magazine was edited from first publication by Desmond MacCarthy after he lost interest in the New Statesman. It had financial backing from Lord Esher...
.
At the same period he set up in 1912 or 1913 the Flying Fame Press, with the poet Ralph Hodgson
Ralph Hodgson
Ralph Hodgson , Order of the Rising Sun ,was an English poet, very popular in his lifetime on the strength of a small number of anthology pieces, such as The Bull. He was one of the more 'pastoral' of the Georgian poets...
and designer Claud Lovat Fraser
Claud Lovat Fraser
Claud Lovat Fraser was an English Artist, designer and author.Claud Lovat Fraser was a member of a distinguished old family in which it was traditional to include the name Lovat in the eldest son's name. For much of his life he was know simply by that name...
. This was the beginning of a long association with small press
Small press
Small press is a term often used to describe publishers with annual sales below a certain level. Commonly, in the United States, this is set at $50 million, after returns and discounts...
and the worlds of typography
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
and book collecting
Book collecting
Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given individual collector. The love of books is bibliophilia, and someone who loves to read, admire, and collect...
, on which he wrote extensively. He was in the short-lived Fleuron Society (1923) with Stanley Morison
Stanley Morison
Stanley Morison was an English typographer, designer and historian of printing.Born in Wanstead, Essex, Morison spent most of his childhood and early adult years at the family home in Fairfax Road, Harringay...
, Francis Meynell
Francis Meynell
Sir Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell was a British poet and printer at The Nonesuch Press.He was son of the writer Alice Meynell, a suffragist and prominent Roman Catholic convert. Francis Meynell was brought in by George Lansbury to be business manager of the Daily Herald in 1913. He was...
, Bernard Newdigate and Oliver Simon. He did more, as a patron of the Pelican Press
Pelican Press
The Pelican Press was founded in 1971 as an independently-owned monthly newspaper published from Siesta Key, Florida. within a year, it became a weekly publication and circulation was expanded to areas in the greater Sarasota area....
amongst others, to encourage the raising of production standards of books.
After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Jackson introduced Orage to C. H. Douglas
C. H. Douglas
Major C. H. Douglas MIMechE, MIEE, , was a British engineer and pioneer of the Social Credit economic reform movement.-Education and engineering career:...
, who subsequently wrote economics articles for The New Age, expounding his theory of Social Credit
Social Credit
Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...
.
Works
- Edward Fitzgerald and Omar Khayyam; an Essay and Bibliography (1899)
- The Eternal Now (1900)
- Everychild: a Book of Verses (1903)
- Bernard Shaw (1907)
- Great English Novelists (1908) essays
- William Morris: Craftsman-Socialist (1908)
- Romance and Reality: Essays and Studies (1911)
- Platitudes in the Making (1911)
- Great Soldiers (1911) as George Henry Hart
- All Manner of Folk, Interpretations and Studies (1912) essays
- Town: An Essay (1913)
- The Eighteen Nineties: A Review of Art and Ideas at the Close of the Nineteenth Century (1914)
- Southward Ho! and other essays (1914) compilation
- Contingent Ditties. and Other Soldier Songs of the Great War by Frank S. Brown (1915) editor
- Occasions (1922) essays
- Brief Survey Of Printing History & Practice (Kynoch Press 1923) with Stanley Morison
- Private Presses in England (1923)
- William Morris (1926)
- The Bibliophile's Almanack for 1927 (The Fleuron 1927) with Harold Child, Osbert SitwellOsbert SitwellSir Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell, 5th Baronet, was an English writer. His elder sister was Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell and his younger brother was Sir Sacheverell Sitwell; like them he devoted his life to art and literature....
, W.J. Turner and Frank Sidgwick - Essays of To-day and Yesterday (1929) with Philip GuedallaPhilip GuedallaPhilip Guedalla was a British barrister, and a popular historical and travel writer and biographer. His wit and epigrams are well-known, one example being "Even reviewers read a Preface," another being "History repeats itself...
, Allan MonkhouseAllan MonkhouseAllan Noble Monkhouse was an English playwright, critic, essayist and novelist.He was born in Barnard Castle, County Durham. He worked in the cotton trade, in Manchester, and settled in Disley, Cheshire...
, Ivor BrownIvor BrownIvor John Carnegie Brown was a British journalist and man of letters.-Biography:Born in Penang, Malaya, Brown was the younger of two sons of Dr. William Carnegie Brown, a specialist in tropical diseases, and his wife Jean Carnegie. At an early age he was sent to Britain, where he attended Suffolk... - Anatomy of Bibliomania (Soncino PressSoncino PressSoncino Press is a Jewish publishing company based in the United Kingdom that has published a variety of books of Jewish interest, most notably English translations and commentaries to the Talmud and Hebrew Bible...
, 1930) - The Fear of Books (Soncino Press, 1932)
- William Morris and the arts and crafts.(Oriole Press 1934)
- Maxims of Books and Reading (1934)
- Three Papers on William Morris (Shenval Press 1934) with Graily HewittGraily HewittWilliam Graily Hewit or Graily Hewitt was a British novelist and calligrapher, second only to Edward Johnston in importance to the revival of calligraphy in the country at the turn of the twentieth century....
and James Shand - A Cross-Section of English Printing : The Curwen Press 1918-1934 (Curwen PressCurwen PressThe Curwen Press was founded by the Reverend John Curwen in 1863 to publish sheet music for the "tonic sol-fa" system. The Press was based in Plaistow, Newham, east London, England, where Curwen was a pastor from 1844...
1935) - The Early History of the Double Crown Club (1935)
- Opening Speech at an Exhibition of Percy Smith's Typographical work (First Edition Club, 1935)
- Of the Uses of Books (1937)
- Shopping and Taste: a lecture (1937)
- The Printing of Books (1938)
- The Aesthetics of Printing. ( 1939)
- The Story of Don Vincente (Corvinus PressCorvinus PressThe Corvinus Press was a private press established by George Lionel Seymour Dawson-Damer, Viscount Carlow in Red Lion Court, off Fleet Street, London in early 1936. Carlow was a keen book-collector, amateur linguist and typographer, and ran the Press purely as a hobby, with the help of a press-man...
1939) - Bookman's Holiday: A recreation for booklovers (Faber & Faber 1945)
- The Reading Of Books (Faber and FaberFaber and FaberFaber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
1946) - The Hunting of Books (1947)
- The Complete Nonsense Of Edward Lear (Faber & Faber, 1947)
- On Art and Socialism. Essays and Lectures by William Morris (John Lehmann, 1947) editor
- Dreamers of Dreams: The Rise and Fall of 19th Century Idealism (Faber & Faber, 1948) essays
- Pleasures of Reading (1948)
- Typophily (1954) reprinted essay
- William Caxton (the first English printer) (Oriole Press, 1959)
- GBS and the Lunatic (1964)
- Sanctuary of Printing: the record room at the university press, Oxford
- Thoughts on Book Design (1968) with Paul Valery and Stanley Morison
- Platitudes Undone: a Facsimile Edition of Holbrook Jackson's "Platitudes in the Making" With Original Handwritten Responses by G. K. Chesterton (Ignatius PressIgnatius PressIgnatius Press, named for Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit Order, is a Catholic publishing house based in San Francisco, California, USA. It was founded in 1978 by Father Joseph Fessio SJ, a Jesuit priest and former pupil of Pope Benedict XVI...
1997)