Viola Garvin
Viola Gerard Garvin (1 January 1898 – January 1969) was an English poet and literary editor in The Observer.
Also recorded as Viola Gerard Garvin
Viola Garvin
- Born
- 1898
- Died
- 1969
- Nationality
- United Kingdom · United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- Occupation
- journalist · poet · writer
- Education
- Somerville College · South Hampstead High School
- Languages
- English
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Life and career
Life and career
Viola Garvin was born at Benwell on 1 January 1898, the eldest daughter of J. L. Garvin, later the long-time editor of The Observer; her older brother Gerard was killed in the First World War. She was named for Francis Thompson's "The Making of Viola" and for Viola Meynell, the subject of the poem. She was educated at South Hampstead High School and at Somerville College, Oxford, and then became assistant literary editor at The Observer in 1926; she later became literary editor, but was let go when her father's contract was not renewed in 1942. She also worked as a translator from the French: for example in 1930 of Jacques Chardonne's Eva and after leaving The Observer, of Romain Gary's Forest of Anger (1944), Rémy's The Messenger (1954) and Constantin de Grunwald's Peter the Great (1956). In the 1920s and 1930s, she repeatedly went into debt. In the early 1930s she was in a relationship with Humbert Wolfe, a poet who also reviewed for The Observer, but he was married. She died in January 1969, aged 71.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1898
Viola Garvin born.
1969
Viola Garvin died.
Publications
Garvin published one volume of poetry, Dedication (1928), and many translations from the French, from The Life of Solomon (1929) by Edmond Fleg, to The Schooner (1959) by Freddy Drilhon. She assisted in the preparation for Alfred M. Gollin's The Observer and J.L. Garvin, 1908-1914: A Study in Great Editorship (1960).
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The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Viola Garvin, revision 1372499518 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
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Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.According to Katharine Garvin, J. L. Garvin: A Memoir, London: Heinemann, 1948, , p. 60, of J. L. Garvin's second, third, and fourth children, two were born on 1 January and one on 2 January; she herself, the fourth, was born on 1 January (p. 44) and her older sister Una on 2 January (p. 41); therefore Viola, the second child, must be the other who was born on 1 January.
- 2.Katharine Garvin, p. 36.
- 3.David Ayerst, Garvin of the Observer, London / Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, , p. 26.
- 4.Katharine Garvin, p. 71.
- 5.Constance Savery, "Work Diary. 2nd-4th February 1969". Manuscript collection, Knight Library, University of Oregon. Savery remembered Garvin's "dark haunting eyes" and recalled that "she shone like a planet at Somerville. No glitter, just 'the soft journey that a planet goes'".
- 6.Giles Brindley, Oxford: Crime, Death and Debauchery, Stroud: Sutton, 2006, , n. p..
- 7.Katharine Garvin, pp. 58, 62.
- 8.Ayerst, pp. 219, 280.
- 9."Briefs", The Bookseller, 30 June 1979, p. 2946.
- 10.Jeremy Lewis, David Astor: A Life in Print, London: Jonathan Cape, , p. 123.
- 11.Stephen E. Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, Volume 2 The Twentieth Century, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984, , p. 612.
- 12.Carlos Peacock, Painters and Writers: An Anthology, London: Tate Gallery, 1949, , p. 18.
- 13.David Bellos, Romain Gary: A Tall Story, London: Harvill Secker, 2010, , p. 102.
- 14.Publishers Weekly 166.14 (1954) p. 2361.
- 15.C. Bickford O'Brien, "Review: Peter the Great by Constantin de Grunwald, Viola Garvin", The American Slavic and East European Review 16.1 (February 1957), 91–92, .
- 16.Ayerst, pp. 232–34.
- 17.Douglas A. Anderson, Lesser-Known Writers, https://desturmobed.blogspot.com/2019/01/viola-gerard-garvin.html.
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The authorities additionally record the heading Viola Gerard Garvin. Her recorded language was English. She was the child of James Louis Garvin. Recorded as journalist, poet and writer.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 29 August 2026.
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