Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann (2 June 1907 – 7 April 1987) was an English publisher, poet andman of letters.[1] He founded the periodicalsNew Writing[2][3] andThe London Magazine, and the publishing house ofJohn Lehmann Limited.
Born inBourne End, Buckinghamshire, the fourth child of journalistRudolph Lehmann, and brother of Helen Lehmann, novelistRosamond Lehmann and actressBeatrix Lehmann, he was educated atEton and read English atTrinity College, Cambridge. He considered his time at both as "lost years".[4] At Trinity, Lehmann had a passionate relationship withVirginia Woolf's nephew,Quentin Bell.[5]
After a period as a journalist inVienna, he returned to England to found the popular periodicalNew Writing (1936–40) in book format.[6] This literary magazine sought to break down social barriers and published works byworking-class authors as well as educatedmiddle-class writers and poets.[7] It proved a great influence on literature of the period and an outlet for writers such asChristopher Isherwood,W. H. Auden,[6]Edward Upward and miner-authorB. L. Coombes.[7] Lehmann included many of these authors in his anthologyPoems for Spain which he edited withStephen Spender. With the onset of theSecond World War and paperrationing,New Writing's future was uncertain and so Lehmann wroteNew 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 ofNew Writing—Auden and Spender—and also his close friendTom Wintringham and Wintringham's ally, the emergingGeorge Orwell. Wintringham reintroduced Lehmann toAllen Lane ofPenguin Books, who secured paper[clarification needed] forThe 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 magazineDaylight appeared sporadically, but it was asPenguin New Writing that the magazine survived until 1950.[citation needed]
He joinedLeonard andVirginia Woolf as managing director ofHogarth Press between 1938 and 1946. He then established his own publishing company, John Lehmann Limited, with his novelist sisterRosamond Lehmann (who had a nine-year affair with one of Lehmann's contributing poets,Cecil Day-Lewis). They published new works by authors such asJean-Paul Sartre andNikos Kazantzakis, and discovered talents likeThom Gunn andLaurie Lee. Lehmann edited two anthologies of new writing entitledOrpheus: A Symposium of the Arts (1948–49). He also published the first two books by the cookery writerElizabeth David,A Book of Mediterranean Food andFrench Country Cooking. He published two ofDenton Welch's posthumous works:A Voice Through a Cloud (for which he supplied the title) (1950) andA Last Sheaf (1951). This publishing house published severalbook series, including the Chiltern Library,[8] the Holiday Library,[9] the Modern European Library, and the Library of Art and Travel.[10] It operated from 1946–1953.[11]
In 1954, he foundedThe London Magazine, remaining as editor until 1961, following which he was a frequent lecturer and completed his three-volumeautobiography,Whispering Gallery (1955),I Am My Brother (1960) andThe Ample Proposition (1966).In The Purely Pagan Sense (1976) is an autobiographical record of hishomosexual life in England and pre-war Germany, discreetly written in the form of a novel. He also wrote the biographiesEdith Sitwell (1952),Virginia Woolf and her World (1975),Thrown to the Woolfs (1978),Rupert Brooke (1980) andChristopher Isherwood. A Personal Memoir (1987). His bookThree Literary Friendships (1983), deals with the relationships betweenLord Byron andPercy Shelley,Arthur Rimbaud andPaul Verlaine,Robert Frost andEdward Thomas.
In 1965, he publishedChrist the Hunter, a spiritual/autobiographical prose poem which had been broadcast in 1964 on theBBC Third Programme. In 1974, Lehmann published a book of poems,The Reader at Night, hand-printed on handmade 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 byRoy Fuller,Thom Gunn,Charles Osborne,Christopher Levenson,Jeremy Reed,George Woodcock, and others.[12]
John Lehmann died in London on 7 April 1987, aged 79.[citation needed]
