Henry Graham Pollard (known as Graham Pollard) (7 March 1903 – 15 November 1976) was a British bookseller and bibliographer.
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Early life
Pollard was the son of the historian Albert Pollard and was born in Putney, London on 7 March 1903. After studying at Shrewsbury School, Pollard studied history for one year at University College London before winning a scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford in 1921, obtaining a third-class degree in history in 1924. At Oxford he was part of the Hypocrites' Club. In that year he married Kay Beauchamp, pioneering Communist and women's rights campaigner. Their marriage was dissolved in 1972.
Career
Even whilst he was a student, he was well known as a book collector, and bought part of a booksellers' business (Birrell and Garnett) in London. He became managing director in 1927, with the company producing many noted catalogues in the 1920s and 1930s, some of which were to become standard works of reference. Pollard's knowledge of his subject was displayed in his contributions to The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature and in his lectures and articles. With John Carter, he wrote An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets (1934), exposing the prominent book collector Thomas J. Wise as a fraud.
In 1937, Harry Carter, Ellic Howe, Alfred F. Johnson, Stanley Morison and Graham Pollard started to produce a list of all known pre-1800 type specimens. The list was published in The Library in 1942. However, because of the war, many libraries at the European continent were not accessible anymore.