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Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter (29 April 1946 – 4 January 2005) was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien and other members of the literary society the Inklings. He won a Mythopoeic Award for his book The Inklings in 1982.
Humphrey Carpenter was born in the city of Oxford, England. His father was Harry Carpenter, Bishop of Oxford. His mother was Urith Monica Trevelyan, who had training in the Fröbel teaching method. As a child, he lived in the Warden's Lodgings at Keble College, Oxford, where his father served as warden until his appointment as Bishop of Oxford. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford and Marlborough College. He returned to Oxford to read English at Keble College.
Carpenter began his broadcasting career at BBC Radio Oxford as a presenter and producer. They jointly produced A Thames Companion in 1975. He hosted Radio 3's arts discussion programme Night Waves and acted as a regular presenter of other programmes on the network including Radio 3's afternoon drivetime programme In Tune and, until it was discontinued, its Sunday request programme Listeners' Choice. Until his death, he presented the BBC Radio 4 biography series Great Lives recorded in Bristol. The last edition recorded before his death featured an interview with the singer Eddi Reader about the poet Robert Burns, the major focus of her creative work. BBC Radio 4 broadcast this programme on New Year's Eve, 2004.
Carpenter was an amateur jazz musician who played the piano, the saxophone, and the double-bass, the last instrument professionally in a dance band in the 1970s.[citation needed] In 1983, he formed a 1930s style jazz band, Vile Bodies, which for many years enjoyed a residency at the Ritz Hotel in London. He also founded the Mushy Pea Theatre Group, a children's drama group based in Oxford, which premiered his Mr Majeika: The Musical in 1991 and Babes, a musical about Hollywood child stars.
He wrote the Mr Majeika series of children's books; these were later adapted for television. The Joshers: Or London to Birmingham with Albert and Victoria (1977) is a children's adventure book, similar in style to The Railway Children and based on the adventure of taking a working narrowboat up the Grand Union Canal from London to Birmingham.
His biographies included J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977; also editing of The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien), The Inklings: CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams and their Friends (1978; winner of the 1978 Somerset Maugham Award), W. H. Auden (1981), Ezra Pound (1988; winner of the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize), Evelyn Waugh (1989), Benjamin Britten (1992), Robert Runcie (1997), Dennis Potter, and Spike Milligan (2004). He authored Geniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s (1987); his last book was The Seven Lives of John Murray (2008) about John Murray and the publishing house of Albemarle Street, was published posthumously.
He wrote histories of BBC Radio 3, the British satire boom of the 1960s,[citation needed] Angry Young Men: A Literary Comedy of the 1950s (2002), and a centennial history of the Oxford University Dramatic Society in 1985.
His account of the period of Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, A. A. Milne and Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Gardens, was published in 1985.
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Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter (29 April 1946 – 4 January 2005) was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien and other members of the literary society the Inklings. He won a Mythopoeic Award for his book The Inklings in 1982.
Humphrey Carpenter was born in the city of Oxford, England. His father was Harry Carpenter, Bishop of Oxford. His mother was Urith Monica Trevelyan, who had training in the Fröbel teaching method. As a child, he lived in the Warden's Lodgings at Keble College, Oxford, where his father served as warden until his appointment as Bishop of Oxford. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford and Marlborough College. He returned to Oxford to read English at Keble College.
Carpenter began his broadcasting career at BBC Radio Oxford as a presenter and producer. They jointly produced A Thames Companion in 1975. He hosted Radio 3's arts discussion programme Night Waves and acted as a regular presenter of other programmes on the network including Radio 3's afternoon drivetime programme In Tune and, until it was discontinued, its Sunday request programme Listeners' Choice. Until his death, he presented the BBC Radio 4 biography series Great Lives recorded in Bristol. The last edition recorded before his death featured an interview with the singer Eddi Reader about the poet Robert Burns, the major focus of her creative work. BBC Radio 4 broadcast this programme on New Year's Eve, 2004.
Carpenter was an amateur jazz musician who played the piano, the saxophone, and the double-bass, the last instrument professionally in a dance band in the 1970s.[citation needed] In 1983, he formed a 1930s style jazz band, Vile Bodies, which for many years enjoyed a residency at the Ritz Hotel in London. He also founded the Mushy Pea Theatre Group, a children's drama group based in Oxford, which premiered his Mr Majeika: The Musical in 1991 and Babes, a musical about Hollywood child stars.
He wrote the Mr Majeika series of children's books; these were later adapted for television. The Joshers: Or London to Birmingham with Albert and Victoria (1977) is a children's adventure book, similar in style to The Railway Children and based on the adventure of taking a working narrowboat up the Grand Union Canal from London to Birmingham.
His biographies included J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977; also editing of The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien), The Inklings: CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams and their Friends (1978; winner of the 1978 Somerset Maugham Award), W. H. Auden (1981), Ezra Pound (1988; winner of the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize), Evelyn Waugh (1989), Benjamin Britten (1992), Robert Runcie (1997), Dennis Potter, and Spike Milligan (2004). He authored Geniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s (1987); his last book was The Seven Lives of John Murray (2008) about John Murray and the publishing house of Albemarle Street, was published posthumously.
He wrote histories of BBC Radio 3, the British satire boom of the 1960s,[citation needed] Angry Young Men: A Literary Comedy of the 1950s (2002), and a centennial history of the Oxford University Dramatic Society in 1985.
His account of the period of Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, A. A. Milne and Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Gardens, was published in 1985.