R. C. Hutchinson
R. C. Hutchinson, born Ray Coryton Hutchinson on January 23, 1907, in Finchley, England, was a notable English novelist recognized for his storytelling prowess and rich characterizations. Educated at Oriel College, Oxford, Hutchinson initially worked in advertising before fully committing to writing in the 1930s. His early novels, distinguished by their vivid settings and multifaceted plots, explored themes of spiritual redemption during historical upheaval. His acclaimed 1938 work, "Testament," garnered international recognition and the Sunday Times gold medal for fiction, depicting the friendship of two soldiers against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution.
During World War II, Hutchinson served as a captain in the War Office, an experience that deeply influenced his later works. His postwar novels often reflected the psychological scars of war, presenting characters grappling with trauma, yet maintaining a thread of hope for healing. One of his most acclaimed postwar novels, "A Child Possessed," won the W. H. Smith Prize and focused on a mother’s struggles with her child's special needs and the complexities of familial relationships. Despite his extensive contributions to literature, Hutchinson's works have often been overlooked in contemporary discussions, attributed to a style reminiscent of earlier narrative traditions and a commitment to moral themes amidst societal challenges.
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R. C. Hutchinson
- Born: January 23, 1907
- Birthplace: Finchley Middlesex, England
- Died: July 3, 1975
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Ray Coryton Hutchinson was born outside London in Finchley, Middlesex, England, on January 23, 1907. Despite being schooled in a fashionable boarding school and eventually matriculating at Oriel College, Oxford, Hutchinson found little reward in schooling. By his mid-teens, he had written (and discarded) his first novel, an adventure/murder mystery. Receiving his M.A. in 1927, Hutchinson worked in advertising for a food processing concern specializing in mustard, where he would stay until 1935, by which time his writing career had begun.
His first novels have little in common save Hutchinson’s keen storytelling ability and an imaginative energy that allowed him to create vividly times and lands he had never visited, including coastal Africa, Germany after World War I, and Siberia. His works are plot-compelled stories of characters searching for spiritual redemption during times of historic upheaval and political turmoil. Stern lessons in stoic endurance, crowded with characters and rich in period detail, the books found an immediate audience despite their length and their multiple storylines. His 1938 Testament, a story of two soldiers whose friendship, forged during imprisonment in World War I, is tested against the economic and cultural chaos of the Russian Revolution, gave Hutchinson not only an international reputation but critical respect as well. It was translated into several languages, and awarded the Sunday Times gold medal for fiction.
Commissioned as a captain in World War II while in his mid-thirties, Hutchinson served in London, most prominently with the War Office. His outrage over the Nazi threat, honed by his attendance at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials after the war, compelled much of his postwar fiction. These novels placed tormented individuals in the war experience or tested the trauma of war as it registered long after the hostilities ended. In each novel, Hutchinson resisted abandoning entirely the premise of hope—his characters, despite bearing the brunt of war’s horrific events, struggled for psychic healing. In addition, war had schooled Hutchinson the capricious nature of misfortune and how individuals must grapple with contingency. In A Child Possessed (perhaps his best postwar novel, the winner of the W. H. Smith Prize), Hutchinson tells of a mother, struggling alone to handle the special burden of a Down’s Syndrome child, who must cope with the return of the child’s estranged father.
When Hutchinson died in London on July 3, 1975, obituary notices recalled the sheer productivity of a man whose work had fallen into obscurity, categorized as throwbacks to the Edwardian model of grand-scale storytelling, sobering moral themes, and intense character studies. Hutchinson always kept an interest in the political and economic environments of his characters, but was never interested in pursuing formal experimentation and was never interested in accommodating the absurd universe created by the nuclear age. Gifted with a wide-ranging imagination, intrigued by characters defined by cultural forces, Hutchinson created a considerable body of fiction that investigates characters struggling for identity who espouse a clear moral code amid economic and political pressures that test such a resolve.