Ian Hamilton (Robert Ian Hamilton) Biography

British poet, critic, biographer, and editor, born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, educated at Keble College, Oxford. In 1962 he founded The Review, one of the foremost periodicals of its day in the sphere of poetry and criticism. He became assistant editor of the Times Literary Supplement in 1965 and was poetry critic for The Observer from 1965 to 1970. In his editorial and critical capacities he exercised considerable influence over developments in British verse in the 1960s and 1970s. A Poetry Chronicle (1973) and Walking Possession (1994) are collections of essays and reviews. The Visit (1970), his first principal collection, appeared to widespread critical acclaim; the thirty short poems of this volume are characterized by their vivid economies of imagery and intense emotional candour, and were republished in Fifty Poems (1988) with twenty previously uncollected poems, which display an increased thematic range. As a biographer, he is highly regarded for his Robert Lowell (1982) and In Search of J. D. Salinger (1988). His other works include Writers in Hollywood 1915–1951 (1990) and Keepers of the Flame: Literary Estates and the Rise and Fall of Biography (1992). He has also edited numerous works, including Alun Lewis: Selected Poetry and Prose (1966); The Modern Poet (1968), a collection of essays from The Review; The Faber Book of Soccer (1992); and The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English (1994).