Harold Alexander Clodd (1918–2002), known as Alan Clodd, was an Irish people publisher, book collector, bookdealer and Bookworm, known for founding Enitharmon Press.
Biography
Harold Alexander Clodd was born on 22 May 1918 in
Dublin, Ireland to Harold Parker Clodd, a rubber broker, and Violet Mabel Clodd ().
Clodd's mother was born in
Limerick to a family who ran a shop in Blackrock, Dublin.
Clodd's father was born in
London to English banker, writer and anthropologist
Edward Clodd.
Clodd had one older brother.
Prior to Clodd's birth, the Clodd family had lived in the Federated Malay States (present-day Malaysia) before returning to Ireland.
Career
Clodd first worked at the insurance firm
Scottish Widows.
During World War II he was a conscientious objector and worked with the Friends Ambulance Unit in Egypt and with
UNRRA in Italy. He returned to London and first worked for an
Oxford Street bookshop, then for five years at the
London Library. This was followed by a series of clerical jobs and finally, a career in book publishing. Alan Clodd retired from publishing in 1987, and died in 2002 in
London.
In the 1950s and early 1960s Clodd published poetry pamphlets by Christopher Logue, Ronald Firbank, and Kathleen Raine. In 1967 he founded the Enitharmon Press. The name came from a character (Enitharmon) by William Blake. The pressmark came from a William Blake woodcut.[ Enitharmon press website. (accessed 22 February 2008)] The Enitharmon Press revived interest in Frances Bellerby, Hugo Manning,[ Portrait of Hugo Manning, on the James Hyman Gallery website Manning was poetry editor of the New Statesman, ]
(last accessed 22 February 2008)[ The papers of Hugo Manning (1913-1977) are in Austin TX at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, ]
(accessed 22 February 2008) and John Heath-Stubbs. Alongside the familiar names of Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Federico García Lorca, Harold Pinter, Kathleen Raine, and Vernon Watkins, the Press also introduced Frances Horovitz, Jeremy Hooker, Jeremy Reed, Richard Burns, David Gascoyne and Peter Russell. The Press had published nearly 150 titles, before being passed on to Stephen Stuart-Smith.
Collecting
During the 1950s Clodd began to collect books. His collection was strong in the Victorian and
Edwardian authors who were contemporaries of his grandfather. He was also a collector of First World War poets: Edward Thomas,
Ivor Gurney, Siegfried Sassoon, and David Jones, and other authors like Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden,
Edward Upward, and
Evelyn Waugh. He had almost every publication by T. S. Eliot and
Ezra Pound, as well as books by
James Joyce,
Samuel Beckett, and
Seamus Heaney. Many of the books were inscribed. His collection was catalogued and dispersed by the bookselling firm Maggs Bros Ltd of London.
Personal life
Clodd was partners with George McLean from 1956 until McLean's death in 1989.
Clodd died on 24 December 2002 in London aged 84.
Further reading
-
Reed, Jeremy (2003) Elegy for Alan Clodd. London: Enitharmon Press
-
Walker, Alan, comp. (2004) Enitharmon Press: a checklist, 1987-2002. London: Enitharmon Press
