26 Facts About Ruthven Todd

Ruthven Campbell Todd was a Scottish poet, artist and novelist, best known as an editor of the works of William Blake, and expert on his printing techniques.

Ruthven Todd was educated at Dalhousie Preparatory School, Fettes College and Edinburgh College of Art.

Ruthven Todd's short spell at art college convinced him that he had no creative talent as an artist and he thereafter pursued his ambition to become a poet and writer.

Ruthven Todd then returned to Edinburgh to begin a career in copy-writing and journalism, while writing poetry and novels.

Ruthven Todd lived in a variety of types of accommodation in central London until the flat he was renting in Bloomsbury was hit by a flying bomb in 1944.

Ruthven Todd then moved to Tilty Mill House near Dunmow in Essex.

Ruthven Todd became a life-long friend of Julian Symons, and a character based on Todd was included in Symons' first detective story, The Immaterial Murder Case.

Ruthven Todd knew Wyndham Lewis, contributing to the Lewis issue of Julian Symons's Twentieth Century Verse.

Lewis recruited Ruthven Todd to keep awake the dozing Ezra Pound, whose portrait Lewis was painting.

Ruthven Todd was secretary to the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition, during which he was memorably required to rescue Salvador Dali from suffocating inside a heavy diving suit.

The project was to be abandoned in 1947, after Ruthven Todd moved to New York, but not before a great deal had been achieved.

Ruthven Todd moved to the United States in 1947, where he lived for the next twelve years, becoming a US citizen in 1959.

Ruthven Todd resided initially in New York where he became friendly with the writers Alastair Reid and Howard Schoenfeld.

Ruthven Todd worked in the summer of 1947 at Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17 printing workshop, where he collaborated with Joan Miro and other artists in experiments relating to William Blake's printing methods.

Ruthven Todd founded and ran the Weekend Press during the early 1950s, and received friendship and some financial support from W H Auden.

Ruthven Todd was one of the main participants in the events surrounding Dylan Thomas's death in 1953.

In 1960, Ruthven Todd moved to Mallorca, briefly living in the village of Deia, where he became a friend of Robert Graves, before settling at El Terreno in Palma de Mallorca.

Ruthven Todd moved in 1965 to the mountain village of Galilea where he spent the remainder of his life.

The first biography of Ruthven Todd was published in 2018, and a bibliography of his works was published in 2020.

In 1937, Ruthven Todd married Cicely Crew, daughter of the geneticist Professor Francis Crew.

Ruthven Todd had a lifelong interest in the natural world, particularly in plants and fungi, and was a knowledgeable amateur mycologist.

Ruthven Todd was a highly skilled illustrator of wild flowers and fungi.

Ruthven Todd made some money from selling his drawings, but most were given away to friends.

From his teenage years and throughout his life, Ruthven Todd was a chronic alcoholic.

Ruthven Todd underwent treatment for addiction in 1965, but this was only partially successful.

Ruthven Todd was a chain-smoker and suffered from frequent bouts of pulmonary illness.