R.T. Campbell / Ruthven Todd

R.T. Campbell / Ruthven Todd otherwise known as Ruthven Campbell Todd was a Scottish born novelist, poet, artist, and scholar of William Blake. Todd was born and raised in Scotland though he spent much of his itinerant and colorful life away from his homeland. He spent his time in the likes of Iowa, Fitzrovia London, El Terreno in Mallorca, Tilty Mill in Essex and Paris before he lived most of his final days in Galilea, a Spanish mountain village. Campbell was born the eldest of ten siblings in Edinburgh, where William Walker Todd his father was one of the most successful architects in town. Many members of the family held prestigious jobs in ministry, accounting and the legal profession. Given his family background, he had quite a privileged upbringing as he went on to attend Edinburgh College of Art and Fettes College. It was while he was in Art College that he began to go off the rails as he became a drunk. Concerned, his family sent him away to the Isle of Mull where he worked as a laborer, something his parents believed would straighten him out. When he left Mull he decided to go to London and worked at the International Surrealist Exhibition as an assistant secretary in 1936. He then moved to Paris and it was during this time that he met a host of famous friends that included the likes of Dylan Thomas, Joan Miro, David Gascoyne, Wyndham Lewis, and Salvador Dali.