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Book Cover
Book
Author Ovenden, Keith.

Title A fighting withdrawal : the life of Dan Davin, writer, soldier, publisher / Keith Ovenden
Published Oxford [England] ; New York : Oxford University Press, [1996]
©1996

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  355.0092 Davin Ove/Fwt  AVAILABLE
Description xxii, 469 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Summary Born into an Irish Catholic working-class family in the New Zealand province of Southland, Davin prospered through his intellectual prowess, eventually winning a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in 1935. At the outbreak of war he joined the army and served with the New Zealand Division in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy. The future official historian of the Crete campaign, he served in army intelligence before settling in London and then Oxford, where he began publishing his novels and made the friendship of fellow writers including Dylan Thomas and Julian Maclaren-Ross. He rose to become Academic Publisher at Oxford University Press, instrumental in the publication of major scholarly works and the friend and confidant of Louis MacNeice, Joyce Cary, A. J. P. Taylor and many others
His often turbulent private life, in contrast to the domestic stability of the home that he made with his extraordinary wife Winnie, and their three daughters, nevertheless was central to his creative life until the tragedy and distress of his last years
Dan Davin was a man of paradoxes: a New Zealander who lived most of his life in Oxford; a man of action who fought in the front line during the Second World War, and made his reputation as a publisher and novelist; a devoted family man who nevertheless led a passionate personal life outside his marriage
Analysis English fiction
New Zealand
Notes Bibliography: p443-447. _ Includes index
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 433-447) and index
Subject Davin, Dan, 1913-1990.
Oxford University Press -- Employees -- Biography.
Novelists, New Zealand -- 20th century -- Biography.
Publishers and publishing -- Great Britain -- Biography.
Soldiers -- New Zealand -- Biography.
World War, 1939-1945 -- New Zealand.
Genre/Form Biographies.
LC no. 95038093
ISBN 0192123351 (acid-free paper)