A Life in Literature

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'There are many examples in literary history of those whose own contributions to creative writing have been negligible but whose activities as critics, editors or reviewers have had a formative influence on the literature of a period,' writes George Jefferson in his introduction. Edward Garnett was such a person: among those whom he advised and whose writing he influenced were Somerset Maugham, Arnold Bennett, E. M. Forster, H. G. Wells, T. E. Lawrence and H. E. Bates. Born into a scholarly family of mild eccentricity, Garnett left school at the age of sixteen with a reputation for canny bowling rather than academic achievement. By the time he was twenty-one he had drifted into the vocation he was to pursue with extraordinary success throughout his life. For nearly fifty years he read manuscripts, assessing their literary and commercial potential, for various publishers, notably T. Fisher Unwin, Duckworth and Jonathan Cape. He alsó reviewed extensively, wrote numerous critical... Tovább

Fülszöveg

'There are many examples in literary history of those whose own contributions to creative writing have been negligible but whose activities as critics, editors or reviewers have had a formative influence on the literature of a period,' writes George Jefferson in his introduction. Edward Garnett was such a person: among those whom he advised and whose writing he influenced were Somerset Maugham, Arnold Bennett, E. M. Forster, H. G. Wells, T. E. Lawrence and H. E. Bates. Born into a scholarly family of mild eccentricity, Garnett left school at the age of sixteen with a reputation for canny bowling rather than academic achievement. By the time he was twenty-one he had drifted into the vocation he was to pursue with extraordinary success throughout his life. For nearly fifty years he read manuscripts, assessing their literary and commercial potential, for various publishers, notably T. Fisher Unwin, Duckworth and Jonathan Cape. He alsó reviewed extensively, wrote numerous critical articles, promoting new work and attacking the literary establishment of the day, published two novels, several plays and campaigned vigorously against censorship in the theatre. Perhaps his greatest enthusiasm was reserved for the promotion of the növel as an art form. With his wife Constance, the self-taught translator who single-handedly introduced so many of the great Russian writers to English readers - Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Gogol - Garnett created in his Surrey home, The Cearne, a welcoming haven for writers as diverse as Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, W. B. Yeats and John Galsworthy. Jefferson describes the meticulous guidance he gave to his authors and the subtlety with which he matched his comments to their often highly sensitive recipients. He could persuade an author to rewrite an entire book and in the case of Galsworthy's The IslandPharisees, it was not once but twice. He alsó kept an eye on money matters. Although he was deeply impressed with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man he would only recommend a large advance if the next two books could be had on the same Continued on backflap
terms. Even Edward Garnett could not calculate that these would be Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake and would take James Joyce the next thirty years to write. Edward Garnett was a man with totál confidence in his own literary judgment. Ford Madox Ford called him 'London's literary -if Nonconformist - Popé'. He was eccentric in his habits, working straight through the night, wandering about naked, smoking herbai cigarettes. Jefferson's portrayal is both scholarly and entertaining in its reappraisal of literary personalities. It says much about a fascinating and talented individual and alsó about the course of English Letters. George Jefferson was born in County Durham. A graduate of London University in economic history, he took his Ph.D. in English at Leeds University. He served in the Royal Navy at the end of the war, chiefly ín the Mediterranean, and on demobilisation qualified as a librarian, subsequendy gaining the Fellowship of the Library Association. As a librarian he held senior posts in Durham County Library and at Liverpool Polytechnic but from 1961 pursued a career lecturing in librarianship and bibliography at Leeds and Aberdeen before taking up his present appointment in 1978 as Head of the School of Library and Information Studies at Ealing. Other publications include four books in library and information studies and contributions to professional journals. He lives in the Barbican in the City of London and is married with two sons. Vissza