Vivian de Sola Pinto


Vivian de Sola Pinto was a British poet, literary critic and historian. He was a leading scholarly authority on D. H. Lawrence, and appeared for the defence in the 1960 Lady Chatterley's Lover trial.
Pinto was born and grew up in Hampstead. He became a close friend of Siegfried Sassoon, having fought in World War I alongside him, as his second-in-command, in France. He appears in the 'Sherston' books, Sassoon's fictionalised biography, under the pseudonym of "Velmore".
After the war he was at the University of Oxford. Later he was Professor in the Department of English at the University of Nottingham, from 1938 until 1961.
He is also known as the translator of France Prešeren's poetry into the English language.
He was the great-grandson of Rabbi David Aaron de Sola.

Works