George Allen

LC name authority rec.: nr93010126

LC Heading: Allen, George, 1832-1907

found: Toronto Public Library. Osborne Coll., 1975: p. 463 (Allen, George, 1832-1907; mezzotint engraver and publisher; first in Orpington, Kent, then in London after 1890)

Biography:

Allen, George (1832–1907), engraver and publisher, was born on 26 March 1832 at Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, the son of John Allen, a publican, and his wife, Rebecca. He was educated at a private grammar school in Newark, and on his father's death in 1849 he was apprenticed for four years to an uncle (his mother's brother), a builder in Clerkenwell. After becoming a skilled joiner he was employed for three and a half years (1853–7) upon the interior woodwork of Dorchester House, Park Lane, and with another workman spent seventy-nine days on the construction of just one of its interior doors. Ruskin referred to this work in Munera pulveris and used to show a model of it to his friends as a specimen of English craftsmanship. Following the foundation of the Working Men's College in Red Lion Square in 1854, Allen attended Ruskin's lectures and joined the drawing class there; under Ruskin and D. G. Rossetti, he became one of its most promising pupils. Ruskin stated that ‘the transference to the pen and pencil of the fine qualities of finger that had been acquired by handling the carpenter's tools’, coupled with an ‘innate disposition to art’, enabled Allen to achieve precise draughtsmanship with great rapidity. Allen was drawn more closely to Ruskin by marrying, on 25 December 1856 at St Jude's Church, Whitechapel, his mother's maid, Ann Eliza Hobbes (known as Hannah). (His occupation was recorded on the marriage certificate as ‘carpenter’.)

From 1 February 1857 Allen acted as an assistant drawing-master under Ruskin at the college (after its move to Great Ormond Street). Following his appointment he was offered the posts of superintendent of the furnishing of the royal palaces of Queen Victoria and, at Rossetti's suggestion, of partner in charge of furniture with Morris & Co., but these he declined in order to devote himself to Ruskin's service, in which he remained successively as general assistant, engraver, and publisher for fifty years. One of his first jobs with Ruskin, late in 1857, was to sort and arrange the drawings and sketches that J. M. W. Turner had given to the nation and which were held at the National Gallery, London. William Ward acted as copyist and Allen as engraver. Ruskin encouraged Allen to specialize in engraving, and he studied line engraving under John Henry Le Keux (the engraver of many of the finest plates in Ruskin's Modern Painters) and mezzotint under Thomas Goff Lupton (who engraved some of the Liber Studiorum plates for Turner). Allen demonstrated his knowledge of the two techniques by producing mixed plates for Ruskin's later books, and in all executed more than ninety plates for Ruskin.

In 1862, when Ruskin thought of settling in Savoy, Switzerland, Allen with his family went out to join him at Mornex, and during this time they travelled together in Italy. His main work in Switzerland was to copy and engrave the work of Turner at full size. He also proved an excellent geologist and mineralogist, so that Ruskin often trusted to his observations; after his death the University of Oxford acquired his mineral collection. Ruskin took no offence when on Sundays Allen engaged in his favourite recreation of rifle-shooting. The death of Ruskin's father, in 1864, ended the Swiss interlude, and through the remainder of the decade Allen acted as a general servant to Ruskin. Many of his reminiscences were of distinguished visitors to Ruskin's house at Denmark Hill to whom he was instructed to show the collection of Turner's drawings.

Late in 1870 Ruskin decided to set Allen up as his own publisher, and through him developed plans to ‘attack what he saw as the three great evils of the bookselling trade: the discount system, underselling and the monopoly of London-based publishers and booksellers over the trade’ (Maidment, ‘Allen’, 6–7). At a week's notice, and without any previous experience, Allen started upon this enterprise at his home at Heathfield Cottage, Keston, Kent, so giving rise to a sarcastic journalistic reference to Ruskin's idea of publishing ‘in a field in Kent’. At first he worked mainly as a distributor, especially of Ruskin's Fors Clavigera, a monthly publication aimed at ‘the workmen and labourers of Great Britain’. However, he was also authorized to launch the ‘revised and enlarged’ edition of Ruskin's works, which focused attention on his social, cultural, and economic theories rather than his views on the visual arts; this he did in 1871 with Sesame and Lilies, in conjunction with Ruskin's existing publisher Smith, Elder. In 1874 Allen secured a loan from Ruskin in order to build himself Sunnyside Villa at Orpington, Kent; he developed his business in an outhouse on the property and tended its garden in his spare time. From that time Ruskin officially dubbed him his publisher, and publication of all of Ruskin's books was gradually transferred to him.

By then a familiar figure at Ruskinian gatherings, Allen became one of the first ‘companions’ of Ruskin's Guild of St George. His responsibilities became all the more serious after 1878, when Ruskin began to suffer from bouts of insanity. Ruskin was then less able to control his own interests and became increasingly dependent on income from his books. Allen tried to develop the firm in commercially sound directions while remaining true to Ruskin's ideological objections to mainstream practices. However, concessions were inevitable. In 1882 he was sanctioned by Ruskin to enter into an agreement with booksellers which established fixed discounts and consistent prices for Ruskin's works, and in 1886 he drew up his own agreement with Ruskin according to which he worked for proportionate profits rather than on commission. The resulting expansion of the business necessitated the addition of premises in London. In February 1890 Allen opened a publishing house at 8 Bell Yard, Chancery Lane, and from January 1894 he operated at larger premises at 156 Charing Cross Road.

Although Ruskin's works remained the principal part of his business, Allen engaged there in general publishing, issuing biographies and travel books and reprinting fairy tales and standard literary works. His approach to books reflected his earlier career as an engraver, for he emphasized illustration and fine printing. He commissioned such leading illustrators as C. E. Brock, Walter Crane, Hugh Thomson, Arthur Gaskin, Phil May, and Thomas Heath Robinson. Despite falling sales, he also persisted in producing lavish editions. A decline in this luxury market made him rely again on the sale of Ruskin's books at a time when they had ceased to appear radical. He was too late to make much money out of the cheaper editions of Ruskin that he had reluctantly introduced in the late 1880s, yet he persuaded both himself and Ruskin's guardians that economically priced volumes best served Ruskin's general purpose and his publishing venture. This led him to issue three publications which were, financially and historically, his most important achievements of the 1890s: a four-volume edition of Fors Clavigera (1896), Modern Painters (1897), and The Stones of Venice (1898).

Allen's last enterprise was the great library edition, edited by E. T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, of Ruskin's works (1903–11), of which, however, he did not live to see the completion. He died at his home in Orpington, aged seventy-five, on 5 September 1907, and was buried in the parish churchyard. His wife had died, in her eightieth year, eight months before him. They had four sons and four daughters. The eldest daughter, Grace, and the two eldest sons, William and Hugh, continued the business at 44 Rathbone Place, Oxford Street. The firm entered into receivership in 1913, and a year later its assets were sold to Stanley Unwin, so leading to the formation of a new company, George Allen and Unwin.

E. T. Cook, rev. David Wootton

Sources B. Maidment, ‘John Ruskin and George Allen’, PhD diss., University of Leicester, 1973 · B. Maidment, ‘Author and publisher: John Ruskin and George Allen, 1890–1900’, Business Archives, 36 (June 1972), 21–32 · B. Maidment, ‘Ruskin, Fors Clavigera and Ruskinism’, New approaches to Ruskin, ed. R. Hewison (1981), 194–213 · B. Maidment, ‘George Allen: George Allen and Company Limited’, British literary publishing houses, 1820–1880, ed. P. J. Anderson and J. Rose, DLitB, 106 (1991), 6–11 · personal knowledge (1912) · E. T. Cook, ‘Ruskin and his books: an interview with his publisher’, Strand Magazine, 24 (1902), 709–19 · ‘Publishers of to-day: Mr George Allen’, Publishers' Circular (12 May 1894), 508–11 · correspondence with John Ruskin, accounts of George Allen, Lancaster University, Ruskin Library · B. Maidment, ‘Only print—Ruskin and the publishers’, Durham University Journal, 63/3 (1970–71), 196–207 · m. cert. · d. cert. · CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1907)

Archives George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, MSS :: Bodl. Oxf., corresp. with John Ruskin [transcripts]

Likenesses F. Yates, oils, 1890, unknown collection; copyprint, NPG [see illus.] · E. Vieler, photograph, c.1902, repro. in Cook, ‘Ruskin and his books’

Wealth at death £10,187 19s. 8d.: probate, 11 Oct 1907, CGPLA Eng. & Wales