John Lehmann
Encyclopedia
Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann (born Bourne End, Buckinghamshire
, 2 June 1907; died London
, 7 April 1987) was an English poet
and man of letters, and one of the foremost literary editors of the twentieth century, founding the periodicals New Writing and The London Magazine
.
The fourth child of journalist Rudolph Lehmann
, and brother of Helen Lehmann, novelist Rosamond Lehmann
and actress Beatrix Lehmann
, he was educated at Eton
and read English at Trinity College, Cambridge
. He considered his time at both as "lost years".
After a spell as a journalist in Vienna
, he returned to England to found the popular periodical New Writing (1936–1940) in book format, which proved a great influence on literature of the period and an outlet for writers such as Christopher Isherwood
and W. H. Auden
. Lehmann included many of these authors in his anthology Poems for Spain which he edited with Stephen Spender
. With the onset of the Second World War and paper rationing, New Writing's future was uncertain and so Lehmann wrote New Writing in Europe for Pelican Books, one of the first critical summaries of the writers of the 1930s in which he championed the authors who had been the stars of New Writing - Auden and Spender - and also his close friend Tom Wintringham
and Wintringham's ally, the emerging George Orwell
. Wintringham reintroduced Lehmann to Allen Lane
of Penguin Books
, who secured paper for The Penguin New Writing a monthly book-magazine, this time in paperback. The first issue featured Orwell's essay Shooting an Elephant. Occasional hardback editions combined with the magazine Daylight appeared sporadically, but it was as Penguin New Writing that the magazine survived until 1950.
After joining Leonard
and Virginia Woolf
as managing director of Hogarth Press
between 1938 and 1946 he established his own publishing company, John Lehmann Limited, with his novelist sister Rosamond Lehmann
(who had a nine-year affair with one of Lehmann's contributing poets, Cecil Day Lewis). They published new works by authors such as Sartre and Stendhal
, and discovered talents like Thom Gunn
and Laurie Lee
. He also published the first two books by the cookery writer Elizabeth David
, A Book of Mediterranean Food and French Country Cooking.
In 1954 he founded The London Magazine, remaining as editor until 1961, following which he was a frequent lecturer and completed his three-volume autobiography, Whispering Gallery (1955), I Am My Brother (1960) and The Ample Proposition (1966). In The Purely Pagan Sense (1976) is an autobiographical record of his homosexual life in England and pre-war Germany, discreetly written in the form of a novel. He also wrote the biographies Edith Sitwell (1952), Virginia Woolf and her World (1975), Thrown to the Woolfs (1978) and Rupert Brooke (1980).
In 1974 Lehmann published a book of poems, The Reader at Night, hand-printed on hand-made paper and hand-bound in an edition of 250 signed copies (Toronto, Basilike, 1974). An essay by Paul Davies about the creation of this book is included in Professor A.T. Tolley's collection, John Lehmann: a Tribute (Ottawa, Carleton University Press, 1987), which also includes pieces by Roy Fuller, Thom Gunn, Charles Osborne, Christopher Levenson, Jeremy Reed, George Woodcock, and others.
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Bourne End, Buckinghamshire
Bourne End is a village predominantly in the parish of Wooburn and Bourne End, but also in the parish of Little Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated close to the border with Berkshire, near where the River Wye meets the River Thames...
, 2 June 1907; died London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, 7 April 1987) was an English poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and man of letters, and one of the foremost literary editors of the twentieth century, founding the periodicals New Writing and The London Magazine
London Magazine
The London Magazine is a historied publication of arts, literature and miscellaneous interests. Its history ranges nearly three centuries and several reincarnations, publishing the likes of William Wordsworth, William S...
.
The fourth child of journalist Rudolph Lehmann
R. C. Lehmann
Rudolph Chambers "R.C." Lehmann was an English writer and Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1910. As a writer he was best known for three decades in which he was a major contributor to Punch as well as founding editor of Granta magazine.Lehmann was born in...
, and brother of Helen Lehmann, novelist Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Nina Lehmann, CBE , was a British novelist. Her first novel, Dusty Answer , was a succès de scandale; she subsequently became established in the literary world and intimate with members of the Bloomsbury set...
and actress Beatrix Lehmann
Beatrix Lehmann
Beatrix Alice Lehmann was a British actress, theatre director and author.She trained at the RADA and made her stage debut as Peggy in a 1924 production The Way of the World at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. As well as her extensive theatrical career she appeared in films and on television...
, he was educated at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and read English at Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
. He considered his time at both as "lost years".
After a spell as a journalist in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, he returned to England to found the popular periodical New Writing (1936–1940) in book format, which proved a great influence on literature of the period and an outlet for writers such as Christopher Isherwood
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
and W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
. Lehmann included many of these authors in his anthology Poems for Spain which he edited with Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
. With the onset of the Second World War and paper rationing, New Writing's future was uncertain and so Lehmann wrote New Writing in Europe for Pelican Books, one of the first critical summaries of the writers of the 1930s in which he championed the authors who had been the stars of New Writing - Auden and Spender - and also his close friend Tom Wintringham
Tom Wintringham
Thomas Henry Wintringham was a British soldier, military historian, journalist, poet, Marxist, politician and author. He was an important figure in the formation of the Home Guard during World War II and was one of the founders of the Common Wealth Party.-Early life:Tom Wintringham was born 1898...
and Wintringham's ally, the emerging George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
. Wintringham reintroduced Lehmann to Allen Lane
Allen Lane
Sir Allen Lane was a British publisher who founded Penguin Books, bringing high quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market.-Early life and family:...
of Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, who secured paper for The Penguin New Writing a monthly book-magazine, this time in paperback. The first issue featured Orwell's essay Shooting an Elephant. Occasional hardback editions combined with the magazine Daylight appeared sporadically, but it was as Penguin New Writing that the magazine survived until 1950.
After joining Leonard
Leonard Woolf
Leonard Sidney Woolf was an English political theorist, author, publisher and civil servant, and husband of author Virginia Woolf.-Early life:...
and Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
as managing director of Hogarth Press
Hogarth Press
The Hogarth Press was founded in 1917 by Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in Richmond, in which they began hand-printing books....
between 1938 and 1946 he established his own publishing company, John Lehmann Limited, with his novelist sister Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Nina Lehmann, CBE , was a British novelist. Her first novel, Dusty Answer , was a succès de scandale; she subsequently became established in the literary world and intimate with members of the Bloomsbury set...
(who had a nine-year affair with one of Lehmann's contributing poets, Cecil Day Lewis). They published new works by authors such as Sartre and Stendhal
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
, and discovered talents like Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
and Laurie Lee
Laurie Lee
Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, and went to Marling School, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and...
. He also published the first two books by the cookery writer Elizabeth David
Elizabeth David
Elizabeth David CBE was a British cookery writer who, in the mid-20th century, strongly influenced the revitalisation of the art of home cookery with articles and books about European cuisines and traditional British dishes.Born to an upper-class family, David rebelled against social norms of the...
, A Book of Mediterranean Food and French Country Cooking.
In 1954 he founded The London Magazine, remaining as editor until 1961, following which he was a frequent lecturer and completed his three-volume autobiography, Whispering Gallery (1955), I Am My Brother (1960) and The Ample Proposition (1966). In The Purely Pagan Sense (1976) is an autobiographical record of his homosexual life in England and pre-war Germany, discreetly written in the form of a novel. He also wrote the biographies Edith Sitwell (1952), Virginia Woolf and her World (1975), Thrown to the Woolfs (1978) and Rupert Brooke (1980).
In 1974 Lehmann published a book of poems, The Reader at Night, hand-printed on hand-made paper and hand-bound in an edition of 250 signed copies (Toronto, Basilike, 1974). An essay by Paul Davies about the creation of this book is included in Professor A.T. Tolley's collection, John Lehmann: a Tribute (Ottawa, Carleton University Press, 1987), which also includes pieces by Roy Fuller, Thom Gunn, Charles Osborne, Christopher Levenson, Jeremy Reed, George Woodcock, and others.
Poets in Poems from New Writing 1936–1946 (1946)
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- Robert GravesRobert GravesRobert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
- Bernard GutteridgeBernard GutteridgeBernard Gutteridge was an English poet, known for poems about the Spanish Civil War, or from his World War II experiences in Madagascar, India and with the 36th Division of the British Army in Burma ....
- Norman HampsonNorman HampsonNorman Hampson was the Professor of History at the University of York from 1974 to 1989. He was born in 1922 and educated at Manchester Grammar School and University College. His service in the Navy from 1941 to 1945 included two years as liaison officer with the Free French Navy...
- Arthur HarveyArthur HarveyMajor Arthur Harvey was born in Edom, Van Zandt County, Texas, on September 26, 1895. He was a writer, businessman, oil pioneer, family man and a veteran of both World War I and II.-Early life:...
- John Heath-StubbsJohn Heath-StubbsJohn Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs OBE was an English poet and translator, known for his verse influenced by classical myths, and the long Arthurian poem Artorius .- Biography :...
- Hamish HendersonHamish HendersonHamish Scott Henderson, was a Scottish poet, songwriter, soldier, and intellectual....
- Peter Hewett
- Gillian Hughes
- Pierre Jean JouvePierre Jean JouvePierre Jean Jouve was a French writer, novelist and poet. No more info at the moment.-References:...
- Laurie LeeLaurie LeeLaurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, and went to Marling School, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and...
- John LehmannJohn LehmannRudolf John Frederick Lehmann was an English poet and man of letters, and one of the foremost literary editors of the twentieth century, founding the periodicals New Writing and The London Magazine.The fourth child of journalist Rudolph Lehmann, and brother of Helen Lehmann, novelist Rosamond...
- Alun LewisAlun LewisAlun Lewis , was a poet of the Anglo-Welsh school, and is regarded by many as Britain's finest Second World War poet.- Education :...
- C. Day Lewis
- Lawrence Little
- Federico García LorcaFederico García LorcaFederico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
- David Luke
- Joseph MacleodJoseph MacleodJoseph Todd Gordon Macleod was a British poet, actor, playwright, theatre director, theatre historian and BBC Newsreader. He also published poetry under the pseudonym Adam Drinan.- Biography :...
- Louis MacNeiceLouis MacNeiceFrederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...
- H. B. Mallalieu
- Ewart MilneEwart MilneEwart Milne was an Irish poet who described himself on various book jackets as "a sailor before the mast, ambulance driver and courier during the Spanish Civil War, a land worker and estate manager in England during and after World War 2" and also "an enthusiast for lost causes - national,...
- Nicholas MooreNicholas MooreNicholas Moore was an English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, who later dropped out of the literary world.Moore was born in Cambridge, England; his father was the philosopher G. E. Moore...
- Vitĕslav Nezval
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- William PlomerWilliam PlomerWilliam Charles Franklyn Plomer CBE was a South African author, known as a novelist, poet and literary editor. He was educated mostly in the United Kingdom...
- Pantelis Prevelakis
- F. T. PrinceF. T. PrinceFrank Templeton Prince was a British poet and academic, known generally for his best-known poem Soldiers Bathing, written during the Second World War in 1942, which has been frequently included in anthologies....
- Henry Reed
- Anne RidlerAnne RidlerAnne Barbara Ridler OBE was a British poet, and Faber and Faber editor, selecting the Faber A Little Book of Modern Verse with T. S. Eliot . Her Collected Poems were published in 1994...
- Michael Riviere
- Alan RossAlan RossAlan John Ross, , was a British poet, writer and editor. He was born in Calcutta, India, where he spent the first seven years of his life...
- May SartonMay SartonMay Sarton is the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton , an American poet, novelist, and memoirist.-Biography:...
- George Seferis
- Jaroslav SeifertJaroslav SeifertJaroslav Seifert was a Nobel Prize winning Czech writer, poet and journalist.Born in Žižkov, a suburb of Prague in what was then part of Austria-Hungary, his first collection of poems was published in 1921...
- Edith SitwellEdith SitwellDame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE was a British poet and critic.-Background:Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping...
- Stephen SpenderStephen SpenderSir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
- W. F. M. Stewart
- Randall SwinglerRandall SwinglerRandall Swingler MM was an English poet, writing extensively in the 1930s in the communist interest.His was a prosperous middle class Anglican family near Nottingham, with an industrial background in the Midlands. He was educated at Winchester College, and New College, Oxford...
- A. S. J. TessimondA. S. J. TessimondArthur Seymour John Tessimond was an English poet.He went to Charterhouse School, but ran away at age 16...
- Dunstan ThompsonDunstan ThompsonDunstan Thompson was an American poet. He was born in New London, Connecticut, and educated at Harvard University. He edited a literary magazine Vice Versa in New York in 1940-1942, with Harry Brown....
- Terence TillerTerence TillerTerence Rogers Tiller was an English poet and radio producer.-Early life:He was born in Truro, Cornwall. His early career was in medieval history at the University of Cambridge. During the World War II he taught in Cairo.-BBC:In 1946 he joined the BBC; and was a known Fitzrovian...
- Robert Waller
- Diana Witherby
- L. J. Yates
- Peter YatesPeter YatesPeter James Yates was an English director and producer. He was born in Aldershot, Hampshire.The son of an army officer, he attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for some years as an actor, director and stage manager...
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