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Theodore Philip Toynbee (25 June 1916 – 15 June 1981) was a British writer and columnist. He wrote experimental novels, and distinctive , one of which was an epic called Pantaloon, a work in several volumes, only some of which are published. He also wrote memoirs of the 1930s, and reviews and literary criticism, the latter mainly via his employment with The Observer newspaper.
During the 1950s he continued to work for The Observer, and was one of the more prominent intellectual figures in British life (perhaps to be compared with Edmund Wilson in the United States, for example). In an article written for The Observer in 1961, he proclaimed the irrelevancy of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, just prior to its paperback publication in America and subsequent cultural phenomenon:
There was a time when the Hobbit fantasies of Professor Tolkien were being taken very seriously indeed by a great many distinguished literary figures. Mr. Auden is even reported to have claimed that these books were as good as War and Peace; Edwin Muir and many others were almost equally enthusiastic. I had a sense that one side or the other must be mad, for it seemed to me that these books were dull, ill-written, whimsical and childish. And for me this had a reassuring outcome, for most of his more ardent supporters were soon beginning to sell out their shares in Professor Tolkien, and today those books have passed into a merciful oblivion.Edmund Fuller. The Lord of the Hobbits: J.R.R. Tolkien, originally printed in Books With Men Behind Them (Fuller, Random House, 1962), and reprinted in (ed. Neil D. Isaacs and Rose A. Zimbardo, Notre Dame Press, 1968).
Toynbee's depression was sometimes immobilising and prevented him from enjoying his day-to-day life and work, and the regularity of his book reviews was sometimes interrupted as he struggled with the depression and the treatment he insisted on receiving for it against the advice of his general practitioner and consultant: electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). He finally got the go-ahead for the treatment in 1977; he received it in Bristol that summer.
The two books that followed the ECT consisted of journal writings Toynbee decided to edit and send off for publication. These largely revolved around his search for some kind of spiritual meaning. It could be said that this arose out of his wish to find some purpose for the misery of his worst depression. He was urged to stop drinking alcohol and occasionally managed short periods of Abstinence. Yet he never really wanted long-term abstinence enough to make any real success of this. He was as a whole capable of self-discipline, but needed to want his objectives with intense singular-mindedness in order to achieve them.
The two journal-books were entitled Part of a Journey (covering 1977 to 1979) and End of a Journey (1979 to 1981). They were generally well-received.
In the early 1940s Philip and Anne lived a Bohemianism life in London's Fitzrovia, and Philip was drinking heavily. At that time they knew Lucian Freud, Donald Maclean and Robert Kee, Henrietta Moraes and others from David Tennant's Gargoyle Club in Soho. Toynbee was later to be found, with Benedict Nicolson, in the Wednesday Club consisting of raffish male writers, artists and journalists.Claire Harman "BOOK REVIEW: Ten years of lunching: 'In the Fifties' by Peter Vansittart", Independent on Sunday, 18 June 1995
In 1945 they moved to the Isle of Wight, for a fresh start. They had two children, the second being Mary Louisa, better known as the journalist Polly Toynbee. Anne later married Richard Wollheim shortly after divorcing Philip in 1950.Emma Tennant Obituary: Anne Wollheim, The Guardian, 27 November 2004 As a foreign correspondent with The Observer, Philip then traveled to Tel Aviv, where he met Sally, who was a secretary for the American Embassy there.
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