Toole-Stott, Raymond.

English freelance writer and bibliographer.

Raymond Toole-Stott (1910-1982), was a British author, journalist, civil servant and bibliographer of circuses and W. Somerset Maugham. He was author of "Maughamiana"; "The Writings of W. Somerset Maugham ... ";"A Bibliography of the Works of W. Somerset Maugham; several works on the circus, etc.

Raymond Toole-Stott (1910-1982) was a British author, journalist, civil servant, and bibliographer of circuses and W. Somerset Maugham. He was author of Maughamiana, the Writings of W. Somerset Maugham: Being a Handlist of Works by William Somerset Maugham and of His Contributions to Certain Selected Periodicals... (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950) [Spec PR6025.A86 Z99 1950], The Writings of William Somerset Maugham, a Bibliography (London: Sole distributors: B. Rota, 1956) [Spec PR6025.A86 Z99 1956], and A Bibliography of the Works of W. Somerset Maugham (London: Kaye & Ward <1973>) [Spec PR6025.A86 Z99 1973]. He also was author of several works on the circus, including the multi-volume Circus and Allied Arts: A World Bibliography (1958-1992) [Spec Z7514.C6 T6].

Biography

This collection was assembled by Raymond Toole-Stott (1910-1982), British author, journalist and compiler of the multi-volume Circus and Allied Arts: A World Bibliography, as well as other writings on the circus, conjuring, and Somerset Maugham. Toole-Stott also worked as a free-lance journalist for twenty years, eight of which he spent as the Chief Feature writer to Bertram Mills Circus at Olympia. During a few seasons in the 1930s, he managed a circus on his own.

Among his other credits, Toole-Stott was the founder and original editor of the Sawdust Review, a precursor to the British circus journal King Pole. Recognized as the pre-eminent historian/bibliographer on the circus, he spent the later part of his life collecting numerous books related to the circus, while compiling and writing his four-volume bibliography. Toole-Stott's accomplishments as a scholar and circus aficionado are particularly notable, considering that he worked full time in the Treasury Solicitor's office as a civil servant. Prior to his death in 1982, he had started to write the fifth volume in Circus and Allied Arts series, which has since been published posthumously.