Robert Byron

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Robert Byron (1923)

Robert Byron (born February 26, 1905 in London , † February 24, 1941 on the Atlantic ) was a British writer and photographer.

Life

Byron studied at Oxford and developed knowledge of art and architecture history on his own initiative. He made trips to mainland Europe and the Orient . His first book Europe in the Looking-Glass from 1926 is about an arduous drive on bad roads through Europe to Greece. In the following three books he praises the culture of the Byzantine Empire . Before his 1933 work First Russia, Then Tibet , he traveled through the European part of Russia and then for six months with the Trans-Siberian Railway through Central Asia . His last and most famous work is the travelogue The Road to Oxiana , published in 1937 . Byron's only fictional 1935 book Innocence and Design is a light satire on Persia .

On February 20, 1941 he left Liverpool on board the Jonathan Holt for West Africa on the way to Persia to work there as a war correspondent. West of the Faroe Islands , his ship was sunk on February 24, 1941 by the German submarine U 97 , whereby Byron was killed.

For the travel writer Bruce Chatwin , who wrote the foreword to a new edition of The Road to Oxiana , Byron's visit to Persia and Afghanistan in the 1930s is the best book of all time.

Works

  • Europe in the Looking Glass. Reflections of a Motor Drive from Grimsby to Athens . 1926
  • The station. Travels to the Holy Mountain of Greece. 1928 (2011)
    • German: Mount Athos. Trip to Greece . Translated by Niklas Hoffmann-Walbeck, Other Library, Berlin 2020, ISBN 9783847704225
  • The Byzantine Achievement . 1929
  • Together with David Talbot Rice : Birth of Western Painting. A History of Color, Form, and Iconography. G. Routledge, 1930
  • An Essay on India . 1931
  • The Appreciation of Architecture . 1932
  • First Russia, Then Tibet . 1933
  • Published with Christopher Sykes under the pseudonym Richard Waughburton: Innocence and Design. 1935
  • The Road to Oxiana. Visiting Persia and Afghanistan. 1937; German editions:
    • Persian trip. On the way to ancient cultures in Persia, Afghanistan and Turkestan. Safari, Berlin 1948 (with drawings by Günter Liedtke)
    • The way to Oxiana. Eichborn, Frankfurt 2004, The Other Library series , ISBN 3-8218-4520-1
  • Imperial pilgrimage . ( London in your pocket series , Volume 1) London Passenger Transport Board, London 1937
  • Letters Home . Published by Lucy Butler. John Murray, London 1991

Web links

Commons : Robert Byron  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Crewlist Jonathan Holt
personal data
SURNAME Byron, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1941
Place of death on the Atlantic