Ian Hamilton (critic)

Robert Ian Hamilton
The cover of Ian Hamilton's Collected Poems
Born	24 March 1938 King's Lynn, Norfolk
Died	27 December 2001 (2001-12-28) (aged 63) London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Writer, literary critic, editor, publisher

Robert Ian Hamilton (24 March 1938 – 27 December 2001) was a British literary critic, reviewer, biographer, poet, magazine editor and publisher.

He was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk. His parents were Scottish and had moved to Norfolk in 1936. Hamilton's civil engineer father died when he was 13. The family moved to Darlington in 1951 and there at age 17 in sixth form at school Hamilton produced two issues of his own magazine, which was called The Scorpion. For the second issue he sent a questionnaire to various literary figures in London asking if there was any advice they could give young authors. Around fifty or so replies were received from figures such as Louis Golding. After leaving school he did his National Service in Mönchengladbach, Germany. He then attended Keble College, Oxford, and within a year started a magazine Tomorrow. The first issues were patchy, but the magazine grew in confidence, publishing an early play by Harold Pinter in its fourth and final issue.

In 1962 Hamilton started The Review magazine, with Michael Fried, John Fuller, and Colin Falck. The Review became the most influential postwar British poetry magazine, publishing a wide variety of writers and both short and long pieces. It ran until its 10th anniversary issue in 1972.

In 1964 The Review published a pamphlet of Hamilton's poems entitled Pretending Not to Sleep. It was one of three pamphlets that made up issue no. 13 of The Review.

In 1965, to make ends meet, Hamilton took a three-day-a-week job at the Times Literary Supplement, which soon grew to be the position of Poetry and Fiction Editor, a post he held until 1973.