Robert Byron (1905--1941)

Robert Byron was a travel writer and architecture critic and historian of the 1930's. His opinions were always strong and good taste appalled him. But he was a considerable wag. Plump, blondish, an intellectual esthete with an explorer's toughness. Vehemently anti-totalitarian he occasionally made himself socially unwelcome such as when he followed an official's paean to the Munich agreement, by asking ``are you in German pay?'' His masterpiece is ``The Road to Oxiana'' about his trip through Cyprus, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, and Afganistan to view the masterpieces of antiquity. The Byzantine and the Islamic were his strong suit; classical art so much boredom. The locals took him and his friend Christopher Sykes for British spies. Not then, but when he was sunk off Scotland in 1941 he was indeed going on a mission of espionage. Like any good member of the Byron family of genius (Lord Byron, his daughter Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace), Robert Byron died at 36.

Images

• Byron

Sites

• Byron on the Buddhas of Bamiyan The Taliban destroyed the giant Buddhas in 2000.

Works

1. The Road to Oxiana    1937, but taking place in 1933--1934.
   A travel book and a critique. Quotes do it justice:
   We to the Lido this morning, and the Doge's Palace looked more beautiful from a speed-boat than it ever did from a gondola. The bathing, on a calm day, must be the worst in Europe: water like hot saliva, cigar-ends floating into one's mouth, and shoals of jelly-fish (p. 1).
   This afternoon, at the castle, a gentleman wearing a white topee and white beard was pointed out to me as Mr. Jeffery. Since he was responsible for the antiquities of the island, I introduced myself. He recoiled. (p. 23)
   [This must be great uncle George Jeffery (d. 1935) well remembered in the family for keeping a house full of potsherds.]

   I asked if it might not pay the Jews to placate the Arabs, even at the inconvenience of themselves, with a view to peace in the future. Mr. Gordon said no. (p. 36)

   [This was when visiting Joshua Gordon of the Jewish Agency in Tel Aviv.]