Edward Garnett

Who was Edward Garnett?

Edward William Garnett was an English writer, critic and a significant and personally generous literary editor, who was instrumental in getting D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers published.

His father Richard Garnett was a writer and librarian at the British Museum. His wife was Constance Garnett, known for her translations of Russian literature, married on 31 August 1889; the writer David Garnett was their son, born 9 March 1892.

Garnett had only a few years formal education at the City of London School, leaving at the age of 16, but he educated himself further by reading widely. He gained a high reputation at the time for a mixture of good sense and sensitivity in relation to contemporary literature. His influence through his encouragement of leading authors exceeded by far that of his own writing. His literary contacts and correspondents spread far and wide, from Petr Kropotkin to Edward Thomas.

He worked as an editor and reader for the London publishing houses of T. Fisher Unwin, Gerald Duckworth and Company, and then Jonathan Cape.