Editing J. P. Martin

{{Short description|English author (1879-1966)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2015}}
{{infobox writer
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth year|1879}}
| birth_place = [[Scarborough, England|Scarborough]], [[North Riding of Yorkshire]], UK
| death_date = {{death date and age|1966|03|24|1879|07| }}
| death_place =  [[Timberscombe]], [[Somerset]], UK
| nationality = English
| genre = Fiction writer
| notableworks = ''Uncle'' series of children's stories
| spouse = {{marriage|Annie "Nancy" Mann|1906|1944|end=her death}}<br />{{marriage|Jane Jenny Sowerbutts née Mann|1947|}}
}}
'''John Percival Martin''' (1879{{snd}}24 March 1966) was an English author best known for his ''Uncle'' series of children's stories.

==Life==
Martin was the son of John Martin, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and his wife Ellen Fowler, daughter of the Rev. Philip Fowler, another Wesleyan, and his wife Mary. Philip Fowler was the brother of Mary Fowler, wife of the Pacific missionary [[James Calvert (missionary)|James Calvert]].{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10 10]}}

John Percival, known in the family as Percy, was born in [[Scarborough, England|Scarborough]] in the [[North Riding of Yorkshire]] in the summer of 1879, the fifth of seven children of whom one died before he was born.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10 10]}} His younger sister Dora (Theodora Fowler Martin, 1882–1961) is also known as a writer, under the name Dora Fowler Martin.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PR19 xix]}} While his two elder brothers were sent to [[Kingswood School]], founded by [[John Wesley]], John was not. His elder sister Mary Calvert (May) went to Trinity Hall School, Southport, and then university. His parents feeling he was not suited to [[boarding school]], he attended local day schools in the northern cities and towns where his father ministered to Methodist circuits.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 18–19, 22]}}

In 1898, the Martin family was based in [[Dewsbury]], and John was working in the accounts department of the local steel works. He was asked to join the Wesleyan [[Leeds]] mission, which for some years had been reconstructed with the ministry of [[Samuel Chadwick]]. Shortly he became a candidate for the ministry, and was given a district missionary responsibility in [[Halifax, West Yorkshire|Halifax]] and [[Bradford]].{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 41]}}<ref>{{cite web |title=DMBI: A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland: Samuel Chadwick |url=https://dmbi.online/index.php?do=app.entry&id=1674 |website=dmbi.online}}</ref>

Martin became a [[Methodist]] minister in 1903, and then served as a [[missionary]] in [[South Africa]]: he chose reconstruction work after the [[Second Anglo-Boer War]], over his father's wish that he should go to [[Fiji]]. His uncle James Calvert Fowler had been posted to [[Kimberley, Northern Cape]] and the diamond mines. Percy had met his future wife Nancy at the Leeds Mission, and before he left came to understanding that they would marry.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA43 41 and 43]}} In 1904 he was placed first in [[Ventersdorp]]. From there he was exchanged to [[Potchefstroom]], and was then sent across the [[Transvaal Colony|Transvaal]] to [[Pilgrim's Rest, Mpumalanga|Pilgrim's Rest]] and [[Sabie]], a gold-mining area, living first at [[Lydenburg]] since the Pilgrim's Rest church had been destroyed in the war.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA44 44–47]}}

Now married, John and Nancy Martin moved to [[Roodepoort]] in 1907. They were transferred to the large Wesleyan church at [[Mafeking]] in 1910.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 57 and 62]}}

Returning with his family to England in 1913, Martin became a Wesleyan chaplain at [[Wycliffe College, Gloucestershire]].{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77 77]}} He was an army chaplain in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] during the [[World War I]]. After [[World War II]] he lived in the village of [[Timberscombe]] in [[Somerset]], where he died in March 1966.

==The ''Uncle'' series==
The ''Uncle'' books are:

* ''[[Uncle (novel)|Uncle]]'' (1964)
* ''[[Uncle Cleans Up]]'' (1965)
* ''[[Uncle and His Detective]]'' (1966)
* ''[[Uncle and the Treacle Trouble]]'' (1967)
* ''[[Uncle and Claudius the Camel]]'' (1970)
* ''[[Uncle and the Battle for Badgertown]]'' (1973)

The Uncle of the six books in the series is a very rich elephant living in a very large house called Homeward. He is plagued by a group of enemies concerned with puncturing his pretensions, and driving home the charge, true enough, that he once stole a bicycle.<ref name="OCCL">{{cite book |last1=Carpenter |first1=Humphrey |last2=Prichard |first2=Mari |title=The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature |title-link=The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature |date=1984 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-211582-9 |page=549 |language=en}}</ref> 

{{blockquote|Homeward is hard to describe, but try to think of about a hundred skyscrapers all joined together and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge over it, and you'll get some idea. The towers are of many colours, and there are bathing pools and gardens amongst them, also switchback railways running from tower to tower, and water-chutes from top to bottom.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=J. P. |last2=Blake |first2=Quentin |title=Uncle |date=2015-10-30 |publisher=Penguin Random House Children's UK |isbn=978-1-4481-7291-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=myPfCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT7 |language=en}}</ref>}}

Uncle has friends and supporters, including the Old Monkey, the One-Armed Badger, the cat Goodman, Noddy Ninety, Cloutman, the King of the Badgers, and Butterskin Mute. He is the sworn enemy of the inhabitants of Badfort, an enormous derelict fortress that blights the landscape in front of Homeward. Living in there are the Badfort gang, nominally headed by the Hateman family, Beaver, Nailrod Snr, Nailrod Jnr, Filljug, and Sigismund, with the support of Flabskin, Oily Joe, the dwarvish, cowardly, skewer-throwing Isidore Hitmouse, the scheming ghost Hootman, and Jellytussle, an animated mound of bluish jelly.

==Reception==
Initial reviews of the series in the 1960s by [[Penelope Mortimer]] and [[Geoffrey Moorhouse]] were favorable.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1]}} In 1977 [[John Rowe Townsend]] wrote in ''25 Years of British Children's Books'' "There are several Uncle books, all inconsequentially episodic and hilariously illustrated by [[Quentin Blake]]".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Townsend |first1=John Rowe |title=25 Years of British Children's Books |date=1977 |publisher=National Book League |isbn=978-0-85353-278-1 |language=en}}</ref> The ''Oxford Companion to Children's Literature'' (1984) commented on its "wildest schoolboy-style inventions and implausibilities, narrated with dead-pan humour."<ref name="OCCL"/>

''[[The Economist]]'' noted in 2005 that  the stories "which focus on the doings of the eponymous hero, an elephant and benevolent dictator, were first published in the 1960s, and still enjoy a cult following."<ref>{{cite news |title=Whatever happened to Uncle? |url=http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5323657 |work=The Economist |date=2005-12-20}}</ref> Imogen Russell Williams wrote in 2007 "If there was ever a children's series generating fanatical, "cult" adoration, this is it."<ref>{{Cite news |title= The elephant not in the room: what happened to Uncle? |url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/jun/20/theelephantnotintheroomw |work= [[The Guardian]] |author=Imogen Russell Williams |date=20 June 2007 |location=London}}</ref>

==Reprints==
The first book was reprinted in paperback in 2000 by Red Fox: {{ISBN|0-09-943869-0}}. See also {{ISBN|0-09-941141-5}}. Hardcover reprints of the first two volumes were published by the [[New York Review Books]] in 2007-2008 ({{ISBN|1-59017-239-6}} and {{ISBN|1-59017-276-0}}).

In March 2013, a [[Kickstarter]] campaign was announced to reprint all six Uncle books in an omnibus edition.<ref name=Kickstarter>{{cite web|url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/927369773/the-complete-uncle-by-jp-martin-and-quentin-blake
|accessdate=2013-03-27
|title=The Complete Uncle, by J.P. Martin & Quentin Blake by Marcus Gipps — Kickstarter
|date=2013-03-27
|publisher = Kickstarter
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/27/jp-martin-elephant-uncle-republishing
|accessdate=2013-03-27
|title=JP Martin's elephant Uncle unforgotten in fan's republishing plan
|date=2013-03-27
|work=The Guardian
|location=London
|first=Alison
|last=Flood
}}</ref> The reprint had the support of — and contributions from — several authors and illustrators, including [[Neil Gaiman]], [[Justin Pollard]], [[Garth Nix]], [[Martin Rowson]], [[Andy Riley]], [[Kate Summerscale]], and [[Richard Ingrams]]. The campaign was fully funded in a little over four hours.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/927369773/the-complete-uncle-by-jp-martin-and-quentin-blake/posts/439022
|accessdate=2013-03-27
|title=Unbelievable |publisher=Kickstarter|department=The Complete Uncle, by J.P. Martin & Quentin Blake by Marcus Gipps|date=2013-03-27}}</ref> The book was published on 31 October 2013 under the title of ''The Complete Uncle'', {{ISBN|978-1783062836}}.

==Family==
In 1906 Martin married Annie "Nancy" Mann (died 1944), daughter of Michael Urwin Mann, in [[Johannesburg]]. He later married as his second wife Jane Jenny Sowerbutts née Mann, in 1947. He had four children, two girls and two boys, from his first marriage.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PR19 xix]}}{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA43 43]}} Martin's ''Uncle'' stories were first told to his children before he wrote them down for a wider audience.

The eldest child was Helen Estella Martin (1907–1994), known as '''Stella Martin'''. She was to 1984 her father's official biographer, her work appearing in 2017 as Stella Martin Currey edited by James Martin Currey, under the title '' J.P. Martin: Father of Uncle: A Master in the Great English Nonsense Tradition 1879–1966'';{{sfn |Martin|2018}} and also editor of the three Uncle books that appeared after his death.<ref>{{cite web |title=Authors : Martin, J P : SFE : Science Fiction Encyclopedia |url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/martin_j_p |website=www.sf-encyclopedia.com}}</ref> 

Stella Martin worked from the early 1920s as a journalist on the ''Bristol Times and Mirror''.{{sfn|Lonsdale |2020 |p=347}} At the end of the decade the ''Time and Mirror'', owned by the Berry Group (at one point [[Allied Newspapers]]) was caught up in a circulation war with the ''Bristol Evening World'' (owned by national rivals the Rothermeres). It resulted in Stella being moved from writing aimed at a female audience, to being a "zoo correspondent". For a time she provided copy influenced by her father's juvenile fiction. In 1932 the ''Time and Mirror'' folded, and later that year Stella married [[Ralph Nixon Currey]], a friend of the family.{{sfn|Lonsdale |2020 | p=343–354}}<ref>{{cite news|title=obituary - R N Currey|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/r-n-currey-729543.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100629004246/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/r-n-currey-729543.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=29 June 2010 | work=The Independent | location=London}}</ref> In 1934 the couple encouraged J. P. Martin to write down the "Uncle" stories.{{sfn |Martin|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PR13 xiii ]}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==
* {{cite book |last1=Lonsdale |first1=Sarah |title=Rebel Women Between the Wars: Fearless Writers and Adventurers |date=2020 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-1-5261-3711-1|language=en}}
* {{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=J. P. |title=J.P. Martin: Father of Uncle, including the Unpublished Uncle |date=2018-01-28 |publisher=Troubador Publishing Ltd |isbn=978-1-78803-106-6 |language=en|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yHs0DwAAQBAJ }}

==External links==
{{Portal |Children's literature }}
{{Library resources box |by=yes |onlinebooks=no |others=yes |about=no |viaf=187117964}}
*[http://www.mssz.co.uk/uncle Detailed Uncle bibliography]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, J.P.}}
[[Category:1879 births]]
[[Category:1966 deaths]]
[[Category:English children's writers]]
[[Category:Writers from Scarborough, North Yorkshire]]