Maurice Baring

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Maurice Baring
Born 27 April 1874
Mayfair
Died 14 December 1945
Beaufort Castle
Language English
Nationality British
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge
Period 20th century

Maurice Baring (27 April 1874 – 14 December 1945) was an English man of letters, known as a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist, and also as a travel writer and war correspondent. During World War I Baring served in the Intelligence Corps and Royal Air Force.

Life

Baring 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. Born in Mayfair,[1] he was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.[2] After an abortive start of a diplomatic career, he travelled widely, particularly in Russia. He reported as an eye-witness of the Russo-Japanese War for the London Morning Post.[3]

At the start of World War I he joined the Royal Flying Corps, where he served as assistant to David Henderson and Hugh Trenchard in France. During 1918 Baring served as a staff officer in the Royal Air Force and was appointed an Officer in the Order of the British Empire. In 1925 Baring received an honorary commission as a wing commander in the Reserve of Air Force Officers. After his death, Trenchard wrote, "He was the most unselfish man I have ever met or am likely to meet. The Flying Corps owed to this man much more than they know or think."[4]

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

He was widely known socially, to some of the Cambridge Apostles, to The Coterie, and to the literary group associating with G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc in particular.[5] He was staunch in his anti-intellectualism with respect to the arts, and a convinced practical joker.

Previously an agnostic,[6] he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1909, "the only action in my life which I am quite certain I have never regretted."[7] Speaking from personal experience, however, he once advised Belloc to "never, never, never talk theology or discuss the Church with those outside it. People simply do not understand what you are talking about and they merely (a) get angry and (b) come to the conclusion that one doesn't believe in the thing oneself and that one is simply doing it to annoy."[4]

Bibliography

  • The Black Prince and Other Poems (1903)
  • With the Russians in Manchuria. (1905) London: Methuen. OCLC 811786
  • Forget-me-Not and Lily of the Valley (1905) Humphreys
  • Sonnets and Short Poems (1906)
  • Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories (1909) short stories
  • Dead Letters (1910) satirical collection
  • The Glass Mender and Other Stories (1910)
  • Letters from the Near East (1913)
  • Lost Diaries (1913) fictional extracts from diaries of notable people
  • Round the World in any Number of Days (1914)
  • Flying Corps Headquarters 1914-1918 (1920)
  • Passing By (1921) novel
  • The Puppet Show of Memory (1922) autobiography
  • Overlooked (1922) short story
  • Poems 1914-1919 (1923)
  • C (1924) novel
  • Punch and Judy and Other Essays (1924)
  • Half a Minute's Silence and Other Stories (1925)
  • Cat's Cradle (1925) novel
  • Daphne Adeane (1926) novel
  • Tinker's Leave (1927) novel
  • Comfortless Memory (1928) novel
  • The Coat Without Seam (1929) novel
  • Robert Peckham (1930) historical novel
  • In My End is My Beginning (1931) biographical novel about Mary Stuart
  • Friday's Business (1932 )novel
  • Lost Lectures (1932) imaginary lectures
  • The Lonely Lady of Dulwich (1934) novella
  • Darby and Joan (1935) novel
  • Have You Anything to Declare? (1936) collection of notes and quotes
  • Collected Poems (1937) poetry
  • Maurice Baring: A Postscript by Laura Lovat with Some Letters and Verse (1947)
  • Maurice Baring Restored: Selections from His Work (1970) chosen and edited by Paul Horgan
  • Dear Animated Bust: Letters to Lady Juliet Duff, France 1915-1918 (1981)
  • Letters (2007) selected and edited by Jocelyn Hillgarth and Julian Jeffs
  • Baring also edited The Oxford Book Of Russian Verse published by Clarendon (1924)

Notes

  1. ↑ Maurice Baring
  2. ↑ "Baring, the Hon. Maurice (BRN893M)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. 
  3. ↑ Mosley, Charles (2003). Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage (Vol. 3), p. 3324;
    Lundy, Darryl (7 May 2011). "Major Hon. Maurice Baring". The Peerage. Ngaio, Wellington: Lundy Consulting Ltd. 
    Baring, Maurice (1906). With the Russians in Manchuria, p. vi.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Read, Piers Paul (2007). "What's become of Baring?", The Spectator, 10 October 2007. Reprinted in Chesterton Review, Spring-Summer 2008, pp. 309-311.
  5. ↑ Pearce, Joseph. "Maurice Baring, In the Shadow of the Chesterbelloc," CatholiCity, July 24, 2010.
  6. ↑ Baring, Maurice (1910). Letter dated 3 May 1910
  7. ↑ Baring, Maurice (1922). The Puppet Show of Memory, pp. 395-396.

References

External links

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