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Charles Montgomery Monteith | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Publisher |
Charles Montgomery Monteith, was a publisher with Faber and Faber. As a new editor with the firm in 1954, he promoted William Golding's first novel, Lord of the Flies which had been rejected initially by one of the firm's readers and by scores of other publishers. Montheith went on to serve as the firm's Director and later Chairman.
Early life[edit]
Charles Monteith was born in 1921 in Lisburn, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland. As a scholarship student at Magdalen College, Oxford, he got a Double First in English and Law.
During World War II Montheith served in India and Burma in the 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He received a wound to his legs from a mortar explosion which resulted in a shambling gait throughout the rest of his life.
Monteith continued his legal education following military services and was elected as a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1948. He qualified as a Barrister at Gray's Inn in 1949, and remained with All Souls College until 1988, serving as Sub-Warden from 1967 through 1969 and later becoming an Emeritus Fellow. His rooms at All Souls became a favourite venue for literary gatherings.
Literary Career[edit]
Geoffrey Faber was also a Fellow of All Souls and had known Monteith for several years. In 1954 he asked Monteith to join the board of Faber and Faber which he had founded in 1929. Monteith made an immediate mark and Lord of the Flies, including changes he recommended, was published in September of 1954.
Monteith helped consolidate Fabers' reputation for literary distinction and established his own list of distinguished writers who were to become Nobel Laureates. In addition to 1969 winner, Samuel Beckett author of Waiting for Godot, Monteith had responsibility for the publication of the works of the 1983 winner, William Golding, the 1995 winner, Seamus Heaney and the 1992 winner, Derek Walcott.
John Osborne with Look Back in Anger,
Ted Hughes in collaboration with T.S. Eliot with Hawk in the Rain;
and Nobel Prize for Literature Seamus Heaney with Death of a Naturalist.
These successes helped Monteith to attract writers on to the Faber list who were later to become well-known: Crime Writer P.D. James and English Poet Philip Larkin, Poets from Northern Ireland Douglas Dunn, Tom Paulin and Paul Muldoon, Irish Novelist John McGahern and Irish Poet Richard Murphy, Guyanese Novelist Wilson Harris and Jamaican novelist John Hearne.
For the first ten years with Fabers he was a colleague of T.S. Eliot. Thereafter, Monteith's efforts continued to draw countless writers to Fabers, including Anglo-American poet Thom Gunn, French novelist Jean Genet, English Playwright Alan Bennett and Caribbean poet and playwright Derek Walcott, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Other Nobel Laureates whose major works were published by Fabers during Monteith's tenure included:
- 1980 winner Lithuanian born Polish poet, prose writer Czeslaw Milosz
- 1996 Wislawa Szymborska is a Polish poet, essayist and translator. She was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature.
- 1999 Günter Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author and playwright. The Tin Drum
- 2005 Harold Pinter an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, director, political activist and poet. He was among the most influential British playwrights of modern times. In 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
- 2006 Orhan Pamuk a Turkish novelist.
Professional Associations[edit]
Monteith became a director of the Poetry Book Society in 1966, a member of the Literature Panel of the Arts Council in 1974, of the Library Advisory Council for England and also of the The Publishers' Association in 1979.
Death[edit]
William Golding stayed with Fabers until his death in ___ and his posthumous novel The Double Tongue, which was published in ___ a few months following Monteith's death inlcuded a dedication to Charles Monteith which was assed by Lady Ann Golding. It concludes, "Above all, this book is for Charles."
References[edit]
- http://irishliterature.library.emory.edu/pdf.php?id=monteith789_100321
- http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/101058044/
- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituarycharles-monteith-1619286.html
External links[edit]
Category:Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford Category:1921 births Category:1995 deaths
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