Maurice Baring

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Maurice Baring (27 April 1874 – 14 December 1945) was a versatile English man of letters, known as a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist, and also as a travel writer and war correspondent.

He was the eighth child, and fifth son, of Edward Charles Baring, first Baron Revelstoke, of the Baring banking family, and his wife Louisa Emily Charlotte Bulteel, granddaughter of the second Earl Grey. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. After an abortive start on a diplomatic career, he travelled widely, particularly in Russia. He reported as an eye-witness on the Russo-Japanese War for the London Morning Post.

At the start of World War I he joined the Royal Flying Corps, where he served as assistant to Trenchard. In 1918 Baring served as a staff officer in the Royal Air Force and was appointed OBE. In 1925 Baring received an honorary commission as a wing commander in the Reserve of Air Force Officers.

After the war he enjoyed a period of success as a dramatist, and began to write novels. He suffered from chronic illness in the last years of his life; for the final 15 years of his life he was debilitated by Parkinson's Disease.

He was widely connected socially, to some of the Cambridge Apostles, to The Coterie, and to the literary group around G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc in particular. He was staunch in his anti-intellectualism with respect to the arts, and a convinced practical joker. He became a Roman Catholic convert in 1909^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Bibliography

With the Russians in Manchuria (1905)
The Glass Mender and Other Stories (1910)
Letters from the Near East (1913)
Dear Animated Bust Letters to Lady Juliet Duff (1915-1918)
Flying Corps (1920)
Passing By (1921) novel
The Puppet Show of Memory (1922) autobiography
C (1924), novel
Cat's Cradle (1925) novel
Half a Minute's Silence and Other Stories (1925)
Daphne Adeane (1926) novel
The Coat Without Seam (1929) novel
Robert Peckham (1930) historical novel
The Collected Poems of Maurice Baring - poetry
Comfortless Memory - novel
Darby and Joan - novel
Have You Anything to Declare? - collection of notes and quotes
In My End is My Beginning - novel & biography about Mary Stuart
The Lonely Lady of Dulwich - novella
Lost Diaries and Dead Letters - satirical collection
Lost Lectures - imaginary lectures
Orpheus in Mayfair & Other Stories - short stories
Overlooked - short story
Punch & Judy - collection of essays and short stories
Tinker's Leave - novel
Also edited The Oxford Book Of Russian Verse published by Clarendon (1924)

[edit] References

Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 40.
Maurice Baring Restored, Selections from his work (1970) edited by Paul Horgan
Maurice Baring: A Citizen of Europe by Emma Letley