Rayner Unwin

Rayner Stephens Unwin (born December 23, 1925 , † November 23, 2000 in Berkhamsted , England ) was an English publisher who published , among other things, the works of JRR Tolkien .

biography

Rayner Unwin was the son of Stanley Unwin , who ran the London publisher George Allen & Unwin . After studying at Oxford and Harvard, Rayner Unwin served in the Royal Navy from 1944 to 1947. In 1951 he joined his father's company. The following year he married Carol Margaret Curwen, with whom he later had three daughters and a son. After the death of his father in 1968, Rayner Unwin took over the management of the publishing house. In 1977 he was awarded the Order of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II . In 1986 he merged his publishing house with Bell & Hyman to form the new company Unwin Hyman. Three years later this got into financial difficulties and was taken over by the HarperCollins group against the will of Rayner Unwin , whereupon Unwin withdrew into private life.

Unwin and Tolkien

In numerous letters it becomes clear that Tolkien and Unwin not only had a professional relationship, but also a close friendship.

Rayner Unwin's father believed that children's books should be judged best by children. So he gave the manuscripts submitted to his children to read, who wrote short reports on them for a small pocket money. On the basis of this assessment it was then decided whether the corresponding book should be published.

In 1936, the then ten-year-old Rayner Unwin received the manuscript of the Hobbit written by JRR Tolkien for assessment. He liked the book and thought it would please all children ages five to nine. Allen & Unwin therefore accepted the manuscript, Tolkien's first non-academic book appeared and became a great success.

When Tolkien had written the first chapter of the planned successor to The Hobbit , he asked Rayner Unwin for his opinion and was encouraged by his positive reaction to continue writing. Rayner Unwin later got parts of the Lord of the Rings manuscript to read. When it was finally largely finished after more than ten years, Rayner Unwin endorsed the publication of the book, which initially did not occur due to disagreements between the author and the publisher. After Tolkien's unsuccessful attempt to place the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion with another publisher, Rayner Unwin and Tolkien conducted new negotiations for the publication of The Lord of the Rings from late 1951 , which were ultimately successful.

In the aftermath, Rayner Unwin was often Tolkien's preferred contact at his publishing house. The selection of 354 letters by Tolkien, compiled by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter , includes 40 letters and excerpts from letters to Rayner Unwin.

Works

• The Rural Muse (1954)
• The Defeat of John Hawkins (1960)
• Tribute to JRR Tolkien. In: Glen H. GoodKnight (Ed.): Mythlore. Issue 69 (Vol. 18, No. 3), p. 32. (1992)
• A Winter Away from Home (1995)
• George Allen & Unwin: a remembrancer (1999)
• Early Days of Elder Days. In: Verlyn Flieger (Ed.), Carl F. Hostetter (Ed.): Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth. (2000)

Web links

• Video of a conversation with Rayner Unwin (requires RealPlayer)

swell

• Obituary: Rayner Unwin. In: The London Times. November 27, 2000.
• JRR Tolkien (text), Douglas A. Anderson (notes): The Annotated Hobbit . Houghton Mifflin , Boston 1988. "Introduction".
• JRR Tolkien: Letters . Selected and edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the help of Christopher Tolkien . Translated by Wolfgang Krege . Klett-Cotta , Stuttgart 1991. (Originally published in 1981 under the title Letters of JRR Tolkien .) Passim, in particular:
  • No. 21 to Allen & Unwin (February 1, 1938),
  • No. 24 to Stanley Unwin (February 18, 1938),
  • No. 28 to Stanley Unwin (June 4, 1938),
  • No. 109 to Stanley Unwin (July 31, 1947),
  • No. 123 to Milton Waldman (draft; February 5, 1950),
  • No. 127 to Stanley Unwin (April 14, 1950),
  • No. 133 to Rayner Unwin (June 22, 1952),
  • No. 296 to Rayner Unwin (July 21, 1967),
  • No. 326 to Rayner Unwin (July 24, 1971),
  • No. 334 to Rayner Unwin (March 30, 1972).