Skip to Content

Todd (Ruthven) collection

The Ruthven Todd collection consists of papers produced between 1938 and 1986. The collection contains handwritten and typed manuscripts, correspondence, and artwork.

The poet, novelist, and artist Ruthven Todd was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1914. He began his career as a journalist and copy-editor while living in Edinburgh, London, and later Essex. He is best known for his work as an editor of the works of William Blake and his children’s books. Under the pseudonym R. T. Campbell, he wrote detective fiction. During the 1930s he was involved with the surrealists movement and had friendships with a number of prominent writers, including Dylan Thomas, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Julian Symons. He moved to America in 1947, where he took a position teaching at the University of Iowa and ran The Weekend Press. In 1960 he moved to El Terreno, Palma de Majora, where he lived until 1965 when he resettled for the final time to the village of Galilea, where he lived until his death in 1978.