Vivian de Sola Pinto, 1895-1969

Vivian de Sola Pinto was born in 1895 and educated at Christchurch College, Oxford where he read classics. His studies were interrupted by the First World War. He volunteered for service and fought in Gallipoli, Sinai, and France, where he became a friend of the English poet, Siegfried Sassoon. He returned to Oxford in 1919, and graduated with a first class honours degree in 1921. After working at the Sorbonne and then in the extra-mural department at University College Nottingham, he was appointed to the chair of English at Southampton in 1926. He left his post in 1938 to take up the chair in English at Nottingham where he remained until his retirement in 1961. He died on 27 July 1969.

Pinto had a wide range of research interests in English literature, with a particular concentration on the 17th-century Restoration poets. On his appointment at Nottingham in 1938 he took a strong personal interest in the local writer D.H. Lawrence and was a major influence on the development of Lawrence studies at Nottingham and the establishment of a collection of Lawrence manuscripts in the University Library. He invited F.R. Leavis to Nottingham to lecture on Lawrence, and was largely responsible for organising the 1960 first major exhibition of Lawrence works at Nottingham.

Pinto's active interests included development of Nottingham's old Playhouse, the establishment of Nottingham University, and the setting up of the University's Department of Fine Art. He was himself an amateur artist and a regular contributor to annual exhibitions.

His published work reflected his range of interests. An edition of Charles Sedley (1639-1701) appeared in 1928, followed by a biographical sketch and critical study of the works of Peter Sterry (1613-1672) and a portrait of Rochester whose poems he later edited in 1935. Pinto's later work included The English Renaissance, Crisis in English Poetry and an edition of the collected works of Lawrence. In the year of his death was published The City that Shone. An autobiography. 1895-1922, which had been intended as the first volume of an account of his life.

From the guide to the Collected literary manuscripts of Vivian de Sola Pinto (1895-1969), Professor of English at the University of Nottingham, 1598-1969, 1598-1969, (The University of Nottingham)