Rayner Unwin - Early Life

Early Life

Unwin was born in 1925 in Hampstead, London, one of four children from the marriage of publisher Stanley Unwin and Mary née Storr (1883-1971). His father was the founder of the publishing house George Allen & Unwin. As a young boy, Unwin served as a test reader for the firm, as his father believed that children were the best judges of what made good children's books. He was paid one shilling for each written report, which as Unwin later remarked was "good money in those days".

"Bilbo Baggins was a Hobbit who lived in his Hobbit hole and never went for adventures, at last Gandalf the wizard and his Dwarves persuaded him to go. He had a very exiting (sic) time fighting goblins and wargs. At last they get to the lonely mountain; Smaug, the dragon who guards it is killed and after a terrific battle with the goblins he returned home — rich!

This book, with the help of maps, does not need any illustrations it is good and should appeal to all children between the ages of 5 and 9."

Most notable among the reviews he wrote for his father was his 1936 report, aged 10, for the J.R.R. Tolkien book The Hobbit.

"Not a very good piece of literary criticism," Rayner Unwin later said of the report, "but in those happy days, no second opinion was needed; if I said it was good enough to publish, it was published."

After attending Abbotsholme School in Rocester between the ages of 10 and 17, Unwin started working as a book salesman for Basil Blackwell, whose father was the founder of Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford. Between 1944 and 1947, he served in East Asia as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He then studied for an undergraduate degree at Trinity College, Oxford, before completing a master's degree in English at Harvard University, which he attended as a Fulbright scholar.