Rupert Hart-Davis

Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis (28 August 1907 – 8 December 1999) was an English publisher, editor and man of letters. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. As a biographer, he is remembered for his Hugh Walpole (1952), as an editor, for his Collected Letters of Oscar Wilde (1962), and, as both editor and part-author, for the Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters.

Working at a publishing firm before the Second 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

Early years

Hart-Davis was born in Kensington, London. He was legally the son of Richard Hart-Davis, a stockbroker, and his wife Sybil née Cooper, but by the time of his conception the couple were estranged, though still living together, and Sybil Hart-Davis had many lovers at that period. Hart-Davis believed the most likely candidate for his natural father to be a Yorkshire banker called Gervase Beckett. Hart-Davis was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, though he found university life not to his taste and left after less than a year.