Humphrey Carpenter (Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter) Biography

British biographer, born in Oxford, educated at Keble College, Oxford. He was a radio producer from 1968 to 1974, when he became a freelance writer and broadcaster. J. R. R. Tolkien (1977) was the first of his numerous biographies of literary figures; with Christopher Tolkien, he edited the Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981). The Inklings (1977) deals with Tolkien, Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis, and their circle at Oxford. His reputation as a biographer was fully established with W. H. Auden (1981), which displays the narrative fluency and thoroughness characteristic of his work. His subsequent publications include Geniuses Together (1987), a treatment of ‘the Lost Generation’ of American writers in Paris during the 1920s; A Serious Character (1988), a biography of Ezra Pound; The Brideshead Generation (1989), his lucidly organized study of Evelyn Waugh and his contemporaries; and Benjamin Britten (1992). With his wife, Mari Prichard, Carpenter edited The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (1984); notable among his numerous works for children is the series of ‘Mr Majeika’ books.