{{Short description|English poet and literary editor}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2019}} '''Viola Gerard Garvin''' (1 January 1898<ref>According to Katharine Garvin, ''J. L. Garvin: A Memoir'', London: Heinemann, 1948, {{OCLC|186300723}}, p. 60, of J. L. Garvin's second, third, and fourth children, two were born on 1 January and one on 2 January; she herself, the fourth, was born on 1 January (p. 44) and her older sister Una on 2 January (p. 41); therefore Viola, the second child, must be the other who was born on 1 January.</ref> – January 1969) was an English poet and literary editor at ''The Observer''.
==Life and career== Viola Garvin was born at Benwell on 1 January 1898, the eldest daughter of J. L. Garvin, later the long-time editor of ''The Observer''; her older brother Gerard was killed in the First World War. She was named for Francis Thompson's "The Making of Viola" and for Viola Meynell, the subject of the poem.<ref>Katharine Garvin, p. 36.</ref><ref>David Ayerst, ''Garvin of the Observer'', London / Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, {{ISBN|9780709905608}}, p. 26.</ref> She was educated at South Hampstead High School<ref>Katharine Garvin, p. 71.</ref> and at Somerville College, Oxford,<ref name=Savery>Constance Savery, "Work Diary. 2nd-4th February 1969". Manuscript collection, Knight Library, University of Oregon. Savery remembered Garvin's "dark haunting eyes" and recalled that "she shone like a planet at Somerville. No glitter, just 'the soft journey that a planet goes'".</ref><ref>Giles Brindley, ''Oxford: Crime, Death and Debauchery'', Stroud: Sutton, 2006, {{ISBN|9780750938204}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=tDETDQAAQBAJ&dq=Viola+Garvin&pg=PT153 n. p.].</ref> and then became assistant literary editor at ''The Observer'' in 1926; she later became literary editor,<ref>Katharine Garvin, pp. 58, 62.</ref> but was let go when her father's contract was not renewed in 1942.<ref>Ayerst, pp. 219, 280.</ref><ref>"Briefs", ''The Bookseller'', 30 June 1979, [https://books.google.com/books?id=7b4qAQAAIAAJ&q=Viola+Garvin%2C+on+the+Observer%2C+has+never+been+bettered%2C+but+occasionally+the+Diary+in+the+Evening+Standard+excels p. 2946].</ref><ref>Jeremy Lewis, ''David Astor: A Life in Print'', London: Jonathan Cape, {{ISBN|9780224090902}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=dfXaCgAAQBAJ&dq=Viola+Garvin&pg=PT158 p. 123].</ref><ref>Stephen E. Koss, ''The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain'', Volume 2 ''The Twentieth Century'', London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984, {{ISBN|9780241105610}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=HOcLAQAAMAAJ&q=Viola+Garvin p. 612].</ref> She also worked as a translator from the French: for example in 1930 of Jacques Chardonne's ''Eva''<ref>Carlos Peacock, ''Painters and Writers: An Anthology'', London: Tate Gallery, 1949, {{OCLC|869923636}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=2Bk2AAAAMAAJ&q=Viola+Garvin+Eliot p. 18].</ref> and after leaving ''The Observer'', of Romain Gary's ''Forest of Anger'' (1944),<ref>David Bellos, ''Romain Gary: A Tall Story'', London: Harvill Secker, 2010, {{ISBN|978-1-84343-170-1}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ARuZ1-tsZr8C&dq=Viola+Garvin&pg=PA102 p. 102].</ref> Rémy's ''The Messenger'' (1954)<ref>''Publishers Weekly'' 166.14 (1954) [https://books.google.com/books?id=xSlSAQAAMAAJ&q=REMY%2C+pseud.+*FIC+%5BGilbert+Renault-Roulier%2C+Raymond%2C+pseud.%5D+The+messenger%3B+tr.+from+the+French+by+Viola+Gerard+Garvin.+199p.+O+54-13038+%2754+Westminster%2C+Md.%2C+Newman+Press+2.50+A+young+priest+goes+behind+the+Iron+Curtain p. 2361].</ref> and Constantin de Grunwald's ''Peter the Great'' (1956).<ref>C. Bickford O'Brien, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3001346 "Review: ''Peter the Great'' by Constantin de Grunwald, Viola Garvin"], ''The American Slavic and East European Review'' 16.1 (February 1957), 91–92, {{doi|10.2307/3001346}}.</ref>
In the 1920s and 1930s, she repeatedly went into debt. In the early 1930s she was in a relationship with Humbert Wolfe, a poet who also reviewed for ''The Observer'', but he was married.<ref>Ayerst, pp. 232–34.</ref> She died in January 1969, aged 71.<ref name=Savery/>
==Publications== Garvin published one volume of poetry, ''Dedication'' (1928), and many translations from the French, from ''The Life of Solomon'' (1929) by Edmond Fleg, to ''The Schooner'' (1959) by Freddy Drilhon. She assisted in the preparation for Alfred M. Gollin's ''The Observer and J.L. Garvin, 1908-1914: A Study in Great Editorship'' (1960).<ref>Douglas A. Anderson, Lesser-Known Writers, [https://desturmobed.blogspot.com/2019/01/viola-gerard-garvin.html].</ref>
==References== <references />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Garvin, Viola}} Category:1898 births Category:1969 deaths Category:The Observer people Category:People educated at South Hampstead High School Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Category:20th-century English poets Category:English women non-fiction writers Category:20th-century English journalists Category:20th-century English women poets Category:20th-century English women journalists