Humphrey Carpenter | |
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| Born | Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter (1946-04-29)29 April 1946 Oxford, England |
| Died | 4 January 2005(2005-01-04) (aged 58) Oxford, England |
| Occupation | Writer, biographer and broadcaster |
| Alma mater | Keble College, Oxford |
| Notable works | J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography Mr Majeika |
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter (29 April 1946 – 4 January 2005) was an Englishbiographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies ofJ. R. R. Tolkien and other members of the literary societythe Inklings. He won aMythopoeic Award for his bookThe Inklings in 1982.[1]
Carpenter was born in the city ofOxford, England. His father wasHarry Carpenter,Bishop of Oxford. His mother was Urith Monica Trevelyan, who had training in theFröbel teaching method.[2] As a child, he lived in the Warden's Lodgings atKeble College, Oxford, where his father served aswarden until his appointment as Bishop of Oxford. He was educated at theDragon School, Oxford andMarlborough College. He returned to Oxford to readEnglish at Keble College.[citation needed]
Carpenter began his broadcasting career atBBC Radio Oxford as a presenter and producer where he met Mari Prichard (whose father wasCaradog Prichard, the Welsh novelist and poet); they married in 1973.[2][3] They jointly producedA Thames Companion in 1975. He played a role in launching Radio 3's arts discussion programmeNight Waves and acted as a regular presenter of other programmes on the network including Radio 3's afternoon drivetime programmeIn Tune and, until it was discontinued, its Sunday request programmeListeners' Choice. Until his death, he presented theBBC Radio 4 biography seriesGreat Lives recorded inBristol. The last edition recorded before his death featured aninterview with the singerEddi Reader about the poetRobert Burns, the major focus of her creative work. BBC Radio 4 broadcast this programme on New Year's Eve, 2004.
Carpenter was an amateurjazz musician who played the piano, the saxophone, and thedouble-bass, the last instrument professionally in a dance band in the 1970s. In 1983, he formed a 1930s style jazz band, Vile Bodies, which for many years enjoyed a residency at theRitz Hotel in London. He also founded the Mushy Pea Theatre Group, a children's drama group based in Oxford, which premiered hisMr Majeika: The Musical in 1991 andBabes, a musical aboutHollywood child stars.
HisMr Majeika series of children's books were adapted for television.The Joshers: Or London to Birmingham with Albert and Victoria (1977) is a children's adventure book, similar in style toThe Railway Children and based on the adventure of taking a working narrowboat up theGrand Union Canal fromLondon toBirmingham.
His biographies includedJ. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977; also editing ofThe Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien),The Inklings: CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams and their Friends (1978; winner of the 1978Somerset Maugham Award),W. H. Auden (1981),Ezra Pound (1988; winner of theDuff Cooper Memorial Prize),Evelyn Waugh (1989),Benjamin Britten (1992),Robert Runcie (1997),Dennis Potter, andSpike Milligan (2004). He authoredGeniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s (1987); his last book wasThe Seven Lives of John Murray (2008) aboutJohn Murray and the publishing house of Albemarle Street, was published posthumously.
He wrote histories ofBBC Radio 3, the British satire boom of the 1960s,Angry Young Men: A Literary Comedy of the 1950s (2002), and a centennial history of theOxford University Dramatic Society in 1985. His encyclopaedic work,The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (1984), written jointly with his wife, Mari Prichard, has become a standard reference source.
Humphrey Carpenter died in 2005 of heart failure, compounded by theParkinson's disease from which he had suffered for several years. He was buried inWolvercote Cemetery in Oxford, also the final resting place ofJ. R. R. Tolkien.[4] A commemorative stained-glass window was installed in St Margaret's Institute, Polstead Road, honouring Carpenter's many accomplishments.[3]
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