BINYON, Laurence Robert. Lancaster 10.8.1869 — Reading, Berkshire 10.3.1943. British Art Historian, Dramatist and Poet. Son of Frederick B., a clergyman, and Mary Dockray. Educated in London and at Trinity College, Oxford (graduated 1893). From 1893 worked in Printed Books Dept. of British Museum, in 1915-33 Keeper of Oriental Prints and Drawings, then retired. In WW I served in a British hospital in France. Visiting Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard in 1933-34 and in 1940-41 Byron Professor of English Literature at University of Athens. Married 1904 Cicely Margaret Powell, a historian, 3 daughters (Nicolette married —> Basil Gray). Friend and patron of Ezra Pound and Arthur Waley.
Publications: Examples of Indian Sculpture at the British Museum. 12 p. 12 pl. L. 1924.
– Guide to an Exhibition of Indian Painting. 6 p. L. 1927.
– The Poems of Nizami. 8+30 p. 16 pl. L. 1928.
– Akbar. 165 p. Edinburgh 1932 (biography).
– The Spirit of Man in Asian Art. 15+217 p. Cambridge MA 1935.
– Also wrote on English, Persian and East Asian art; dramas; Collected Poems. 1-2. 1931; complete translation of the Divine Comedy of Dante. 1933-43.
Sources: Wikipedia (with three pictures); *J. Hatcher, Laurence Binyon: poet, scholar of East and West. Oxford 1995 and *Oxford D.N.B.
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