Background

Robert Byron was born on February 26, 1905, in London, Wembley, United Kingdom. He was a son of Eric Byron, a civil engineer, and Margaret Robinson. He had a sister named Lucy Butler.

Robert was distantly related to the sixth Baron, the famous poet Lord George Gordon Byron.

Education

Robert Byron received his general education at Eton College in Berkshire. Then, he pursued his studies at Merton College of Oxford University where he received the third class degree in history in 1926. He was thrown out from the institution for his turbulent behavior.

Career

Robert Byron began his career in journalism in 1929 traveling to India as a correspondent for the London Daily Express. Before writing travel books and criticisms of art, the result of tours through Persia, China, and the Far East, Byron had already established himself with his writings elaborating on art and history during excursions through Europe with two companions while an undergraduate at Oxford.

Among his destination points were Mount Athos, India, the Soviet Union, and Tibet. Although, it was after his trip to Persia and Afghanistan in 1937 when Byron received the true acclaim due to ‘The Road to Oxiana’ book where he summed up the results of the journey. The account was highly appreciated by many critics such as the writer Graham Greene, Michael Dirda, George Malcolm Young and others.

Byron’s travels were beset with difficulties, such as snowstorms, snakes, a collision with a truck, his suitcase full of photographs being run over, and the axle on his car breaking.

During World War II, Robert Byron was engaged as a special correspondent for the British Broadcasting Company Overseas News Department. The mission turned out to be fatal for the historian. The ship on which he traveled was sunk by a torpedo from the Scharnhorst in 1941 off the north coast of Scotland.

Achievements

• Despite Robert Byron’s extremely short career of a writer which lasted only fifteen years, he is considered nowadays as the guide to almost all his subsequent colleagues, including Patrick Leigh Fermor, Eric Newby, Colin Thubron and Bruce Chatwin.
  
  A prolific author, he managed to produce nine works on his traveling apart from some collaborations with other authors. Byron’s masterpiece, ‘The Road to Oxiana’, continues to attract many connoisseurs of his talent.
  
  When Byzantium was regarded by British establishment as a citadel of medieval superstition, Robert Byron stood for the importance of its art and culture. He contributed to the renewal of the interest to Byzantine History, so-called philhellenism.
  
  Byron was also an avid supporter of the preservation of historic buildings. He was among the founders of the Georgian Group.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Station: Travels to the Holy Mountain of Greece

    (The book tells about Robert Byron’s journey to Mount Atho...)

    2010
  • First Russia, Then Tibet: Travels through a Changing World

    (The book tells about Robert Byron’s journey to the three ...)

    2011
  • The Road to Oxiana

    (The book tells about Robert Byron’s journey through the M...)

    1982
  • The Byzantine Achievement: An Historical Perspective

    (Robert Byron’s book about post-classical Byzantium with a...)

    2010
  • Europe in the Looking Glass

    (The book describes Byron's journey made with three friend...)

    2012
  • Architectural Review, New Delhi 1997

Politics

After his trip to the Soviet Union, Robert Byron formed an antipathy to Stalinism describing it as “sinister” and “based on a system of spying”.

The writer was a strong opponent of Nazi Germany and its fascist policy.

Membership

• One of the student clubs at Oxford University

  Hypocrites' Club , United Kingdom

Personality

Robert Byron was an erudite wit and nimble-minded person. He had a big interest in ancient civilizations and architecture.

A number of reviewers of Byron’s works complained about his wordiness. One title alone, ‘The Birth of Western Painting, a History of Colour, Form, and Iconography, Illustrated from the Paintings of Mistra and Mount Athos, of Giotto and Duccio, and of El Greco’, is certainly evidence of that criticism.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Brilliant, perverse, intuitive, pugnacious, and absolutely infuriating a critic as the twentieth century has produced." John Julius Norwich, historian and writer
  
  "Wielding a vivid, picturesque, highly- colored style, Mr. Byron with equal skill draws a picture with his pencil and levels his camera at scenes never before attempted. Moreover, he preserves amid whatever tribulations, a hilarious spirit, tuned to the eternal comic, which is the best part of a serene philosophy of life." Boston Transcript reviewer

Interests

• travelling, literature, architecture, Byzantine History

Connections

Robert Byron was a homosexual. He lived with an aristocratic aesthete Desmond Parsons till the death of the latter in 1937.

Father:

Eric Byron

Mother:

Margaret Robinson

Sister:

Lucy Butler

Partner:

Desmond Parsons

References

• Robert Byron: Letters Home Collecting Robert Byron’s letters written during his travelling, the book shows him as an entertaining letter-writer
  1991