Editing Stephen Potter (section)

==Lecturer in English literature==
In 1926 Potter began teaching English literature at [[Birkbeck, University of London|Birkbeck College]], [[University of London]].<ref name=dnb/> On 7 July 1927 he married Marian Anderson Attenborough<ref name=MCreg /> (1900–1981), a painter professionally known as [[Mary Potter painter|Mary Potter]]. There were two sons of the marriage Andrew (1928–2008) and Julian (1931–2013).<ref name=dnb/><ref name=MCreg /> The family at first lived in [[Chiswick]], London, before moving to a flat in [[Harley Street]].<ref name=dnb2>Bessborough, Madeleine, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38336, "Potter, Marian Anderson (Mary)(1900–1981)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edition, May 2009, accessed 22 May 2010 (requires subscription)</ref>

Potter's first book, ''The Young Man'' (1929), was an autobiographical novel, which was well-reviewed. ''[[The Guardian|The Manchester Guardian]]'' wrote, "a brilliant performance&nbsp;... a distinguished contribution to intellectual fiction."<ref>"Books of the Day", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 25 October 1929, p. 7</ref>  In 1930 he wrote  ''D. H. Lawrence: A First Study'', the first book-length work on [[D. H. Lawrence|Lawrence]], which appeared in print within a few days of the death of its subject; unfortunate timing, because it seemed like an inadequate memorial rather than what it was intended to be, a critical reappraisal. It also suffered from a regrettable misprint, rendering the heading "Sea and Sardinia", as "Sex and Sardinia". This was soon amplified by rumour into "Sex and Sardines", none of which helped Potter's reputation as a serious writer.<ref name=tls/> Potter's most comprehensive critic was the friend from whom he had inherited the Cape commission, [[Gerald Basil Edwards|G.B. Edwards]], in Middleton Murry's ''Adelphi''.<ref>[[Edward Chaney]], ''Genius Friend: G.B. Edwards and [[The Book of Ebenezer Le Page]],'' Blue Ormer 2015</ref>  After this he concentrated in his next four works on [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]]. He edited the [[Nonesuch Press]] ''Coleridge'' (1933), praised in ''[[The Times]]'' as "the best anthology that has ever shown Coleridge as poet, philosopher and critic.<ref>"Books For the Holidays&nbsp;– Successes of the Year, A Selected List", ''The Times,'' 27 July 1934, p. 8</ref> This was followed by an edition of [[Sara Coleridge]]'s letters to [[Thomas Poole (tanner)|Thomas Poole]], ''Minnow among Tritons'' (1934), which Potter edited from the original manuscripts in the [[British Library|British Museum]].<ref>''The Times Literary Supplement'', 19 July 1934, p. 507</ref> In 1941 he wrote a play, ''Married to a Genius'', based on the Coleridge marriage.<ref name=dnb/>  In 1935 he published his most important contribution to the subject, ''Coleridge and S.T.C.'', a discussion of the duality in the poet's nature, "not merely the earlier and the later, but the true and the false, and the exciting and the nauseating," as [[John Middleton Murry]] put it in a review in ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]''. Reviews were good, but with reservations that Potter oversimplified the dichotomy in Coleridge's nature (''[[The Observer]]'') or else did not explore the underlying reasons for it (''TLS'').<ref>de Sélincourt, Basil, "Two Beings in One", ''The Observer'', 28 April 1935, p. 5</ref>

In 1937 Potter published ''The Muse in Chains: a Study in Education'', a humorous satire on the academic teaching of English literature. [[G. M. Young]] wrote of it: "if I were suddenly commissioned by some Golden Dustman to organize a new University, I think I should send for Mr. Potter and offer him the Chair of English literature forthwith."<ref>''quoted'' in ODNB article</ref> Other reviewers thought Potter's suggestions more entertaining than practical.<ref>de Sélincourt, Basil, "The Teaching of English", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 23 February 1937, p. 7</ref> Potter's humorous insights into academic life were widely praised. He wrote of [[George Saintsbury]]: "It is recorded that for eighteen years he started the day by reading a French novel (in preparation for his history of them)&nbsp;– an act so unnatural to man as almost in itself to amount to genius."<ref>''The Muse in Chains'', ''quoted'' in Hart-Davis, Volume 3, 30 March 1958</ref>

===BBC writer and producer===
Potter first wrote for [[BBC]] radio in 1936. Finding that his academic career, although promising, was insufficiently well paid to support his family, he resigned from Birkbeck in 1937 and the following year joined the BBC as a writer-producer<ref name=MCreg /> in its features department, originally concentrating on literary features and documentaries. In the same year he joined the [[Savile Club]], known for its artistic and especially literary members, who have included [[Thomas Hardy|Hardy]], [[Rudyard Kipling|Kipling]], and [[William Butler Yeats|Yeats]]. He was a leading player of the club's idiosyncratic version of [[snooker]], and some of his later "gamesmanship" ploys are thought to have originated in the Savile's games room.<ref>[http://www.savileclub.co.uk/index.php?id=111&sub=57 "Savile Snooker"], Savile Club website. The rules of Savile Snooker, formulated by Potter, can be accessed [https://web.archive.org/web/20110716140249/http://www.savileclub.co.uk/downloads/SavileSnookerRulesA5Booklet.pdf here].</ref>

At the outbreak of the Second World War Potter was sent by the BBC to work in [[Manchester]]. Later in the war years he and his wife moved south, living in a farmhouse in [[Essex]] where she found more scope to pursue her career as a painter.<ref name=dnb2/> In 1943 Potter collaborated with [[Joyce Grenfell]] on a gently satirical comedy feature "How to Talk to Children".<ref>[http://www.bris.ac.uk/theatrecollection/grenfell.html University of Bristol Theatre Collection]</ref> It was well received and they made twenty-eight more "How to&nbsp;..." programmes, including "How to Woo" and "How to Give a Party". In 1946 "How to Listen" was the first broadcast heard on the newly created [[BBC Radio 3|Third Programme]].<ref>Joyce Grenfell, his co-author, wrote in the ODNB article that this feature was called "How to Listen to Radio", but comparison with the published programme listings (e.g. ''The Manchester Guardian'', 28 September 1946, p. 2 and ''The Times'', 30 September 1946, p. 6) shows that the title was "How to Listen" ''tout court''.</ref> At the end of the war, Potter took on a number of concurrent literary tasks. These included drama critic for the ''[[New Statesman]]'' and book reviewer for the ''[[News Chronicle]]''.

===''Gamesmanship'' and freelance writing===
A ten-day power-cut at the beginning of 1947 prevented any broadcasting and gave Potter the opportunity to dash off a book. To the despair of his publisher he was a far from methodical author: every Potter manuscript was "a mass of dirty bits of paper, vilely typed, corrected in illegible [[ballpoint pen|biro]], episodic and half-revised."<ref>Hart-Davis, Volume 4, Letter of 7 February 1959</ref> This book, ''The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship: Or the Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating'', illustrated by Frank Wilson, was published in 1947, and sold prodigiously.<ref name="vqr">Lowrey, Burling, [http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1993/autumn/lowrey-timelessness/ "The Timelessness of Stephen Potter's Gamesmanship"], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090907172010/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1993/autumn/lowrey-timelessness/ |date=7 September 2009 }} ''Virginia Quarterly Review'', Autumn 1993, pp.718–26</ref><ref name=rhd/>

It was the first of his series of books purporting to teach ploys for manipulating one's associates, making them feel inferior and thus gaining the status of being one-up on them. From this book, the term "Gamesmanship" entered the English language. Potter said that he was introduced to the technique by [[C. E. M. Joad]] during a game of tennis in which Joad and Potter were struggling against two fit young students. Joad politely requested the students to state clearly whether a ball had landed in or out (when in truth it was so obviously out that they had not thought it necessary to say so). This nonplussed the students, who wondered if their sportsmanship was in question; they became so edgy that they lost the match.<ref name=gale>[http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=1&locID=wes_ttda&secondary=false&u=CA&t=KW&s=2&NA=Stephen+Potter, "Potter, Stephen"], ''Contemporary Authors Online'', Gale, 2003, accessed 22 May 2010 (requires subscription)</ref> With the success of ''Gamesmanship'', Potter left the BBC in 1949, ended his existing journalistic commitments, and briefly became editor of a weekly, ''[[Leader Magazine]]''.<ref>Sleeve notes for the Penguin edition of ''The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship''</ref> The magazine closed in 1950, and thereafter he was a freelance writer for the rest of his life.<ref name=dnb/>

Potter followed up the success of Gamesmanship, extending the basic idea to many other aspects of life, in ''Some Notes on Lifemanship'' (1950), which was another big seller.<ref name=gale/> In "Lifemanship" Potter extended the principles of gamesmanship to courtship ("Woomanship"), literature ("Writermanship") and pastimes ("Conversationship"). Thus for example the reader is enjoined, "never forget the uses of Lowbrowmanship in conversation&nbsp;... LOWBROWMAN: Oh, I don't know, I rather like a good bit of old-fashioned vulgarity. And I'm awfully sorry but I like leg shows. If the Lowbrowman happens to be a Professor of Aesthetics&nbsp;... his remark is all the more irritating".<ref>Stephen Potter, ''Some Notes on Lifemanship'' (London 1950) p. 26</ref> A related gambit for the journalist was ' ''Daily Mirrorship''&nbsp;... an unaffected love of tremendously ordinary and homely things like [[Danny Kaye]], mild and bitter, the ''Daily Mirror'', the Bertram Mills circus and [[Rita Hayworth]]".<ref>Potter, ''Lifemanship'' p. 77</ref> Potter mentions in passing how "in the last of my Bude lectures I spoke of Gamesmanship and Shakespeare, where most of my remarks referred to Footnote Play".<ref>Potter, ''Lifemanship'' p. 123</ref> His notes on Donmanship refer to the "art of Criticising without Actually Listening".<ref>Potter, ''Lifemanship'' p. 91</ref>

In his notes on Woomanship, Potter expresses surprise that "twelve times as many workers volunteered to send in reports on Woomanship as on any other subject".<ref>Potter, ''Lifemanship'' p. 53</ref> In mixed gamesmanship, for a man "a good working knowledge of the Chivalry Gambit is essential"; a woman's counter to "the least signs of trying the 'I have long adored you from afar' move", is to "treat it immediately as a formal proposal of marriage ''which you shyly accept''. This is one of the most devastating, the most match-winning, counters in the whole realm of gamesmanship".<ref>Potter, ''Lifemanship'' pp. 116–7</ref>

In 1951 Potter and his wife moved to [[Suffolk]], to the Red House in [[Aldeburgh]]. The most famous local residents were [[Benjamin Britten]] and [[Peter Pears]], with whom the Potters quickly became friendly. They got involved with the running of Britten's [[Aldeburgh Festival]], and "every summer Britten, Peter Pears, and the Potters formed the nucleus of countless tennis parties on the grass court at the Red House."<ref name=dnb2/> In 1954, Potter asked his wife for a divorce. She consented, and he moved away from Aldeburgh. Finding the Red House too large and expensive for one person, Mary Potter agreed to exchange houses with Britten and Pears, who moved into the Red House, with which they were associated for the rest of their lives and beyond.<ref name=dnb2/><ref>See [http://www.brittenpears.org/?page=about/redHouse the Britten-Pears Foundation website]</ref> In 1955, after nearly 30 years of marriage, the Potters' divorce was finalised, and he remarried, to [[Heather Jenner]], the founder of The Marriage Bureau. Their only child, Luke, was born the following year.<ref name=dnb/>

A second successor to ''Gamesmanship'' was published as ''[[One-upmanship|One-Upmanship]]'' (1952). Potter had become well enough known overseas to be invited to give a literary lecture tour of America. He described his experiences in ''Potter on America'' (1956), which received a long and complimentary review in ''The Times Literary Supplement'': "Mr. Potter's private army of Lifemen will need no recommendation to this latest frolic&nbsp;.... It is a pleasure to discover or rediscover the United States in this company, for the author is the most literate of humorists."<ref>''The Times Literary Supplement'', 14 December 1956, p. 752</ref>

A third sequel to ''Gamesmanship'', was published in 1958 under the title of ''Supermanship''. Its publisher, [[Rupert Hart-Davis]], privately wrote of the book, "''Gamesmanship'' made me laugh a lot, and its two successors were just good enough (all three still sell prodigiously), but the world has moved (deathwards, you may say) in the last ten years, and Potter hasn't budged an inch. In truth the joke is played out, but he won't face the fact. This manuscript consists of a bunch of marginal articles, written during the past six years and slung together with the minimum of care."<ref name=rhd>Hart-Davis, Volume 3, Letter of 13 April 1958</ref> Some critics agreed. ''[[The New Yorker]]'' commented, "his methods and the point of view behind them don't seem as funny or as sharp as they once did, possibly because they are no longer surprising, or possibly because he is getting a little tired of his own joke." But [[Edmund Wilson]] remained a fan of Potter, praising "the brevity and compactness of the presentation. As in any practical manual, the principles are stated and concisely illustrated. Nothing goes on too long."<ref name=gale/>

===Later years===
By the late 1950s the concept and the suffix "-manship" had entered the English language. The foreign policy of the American [[United States Secretary of State|secretary of state]] [[John Foster Dulles]] was universally known as "[[brinkmanship]]",<ref name=timesobit>''The Times'' obituary notice, 3 December 1969, p. 13</ref> and in England [[Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh|Prince Philip]] borrowed from Potter in 1957, accusing accountants of "taxmanship&nbsp;– the art of scoring off the Inland Revenue without actually cheating".<ref>''The Times'', 10 May 1955, p. 7</ref><ref>The Oxford English Dictionary (2010) also lists "conferencemanship", "deathmanship", "grantsmanship", "namesmanship", "queuemanship", and "winemanship".</ref> According to Joyce Grenfell, Potter had become bored with the joke by this time, "but for the rest of his life he found it difficult to speak or write naturally, so accustomed had he grown to the jocose gambits and ploys of his own invention."<ref name=dnb/> Potter himself was aware of the pigeonhole in which he had put himself. He described himself in ''The Times'' in 1967 as "one whose sole contribution to world thought has been the naming and description of the form of behaviour now known as gamesmanship".<ref>Potter, Stephen, Letter to ''The Times'', 10 April 1967, p. 11</ref> Another friend said of him, "This kind of fame was not what he had hoped for. He wanted to be a great serious writer. Yet that was totally beyond him."<ref>Collis, John Stewart, "One-up for ever", ''The Times'', 9 October 1980, p. 11</ref>

Potter's last works went in new directions. In 1959 he wrote a corporate history of [[H. J. Heinz Company|H.J. Heinz]] under the title ''The Magic Number'', and his autobiography of his first 20 years, ''Steps to Immaturity''. His publisher was doubtful about the latter, but it was well received. ''The Times Literary Supplement'', called it "this sympathetic, beguiling book" and looked forward to a sequel,<ref>''The Times Literary Supplement,'' 18 December 1959, p. 743</ref> and other papers from ''[[The Daily Express]]'' to ''The New Statesman'' praised it in their reviews.<ref>''The Times'', 17 December 1959, p. 12</ref>  In 1965 when his youngest son was about 9 years old, Potter wrote a children's book, ''Squawky'', illustrated by [[George Him]], with whom he had earlier created the mythical County of Schweppshire as part of an advertising campaign for a soft-drink manufacturer.<ref>[http://www.georgehim.co.uk/schweppshire.html George Him website], accessed 22 May 2010</ref> At the time of his death he was making notes on word origins from the natural world; they were posthumously edited and published in 1973 as ''Pedigree: Essays on the Etymology of Words from Nature''.<ref>''The Times Literary Supplement'', 14 December 1973, p. 1545</ref>

Potter died of pneumonia in London at the age of 69.<ref name=dnb/>