Robert Byron, like his famous namesake Lord Byron (no relation), was a traveller who wrote about his travels. Both of them battled against tyranny, fell in love with Greece and died young. Byron was born 26 February 1905 in Wembley, London. He read history at Oxford, and became one of the bright young things that included Harold Acton, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford and Emerald Cunard, though these friendships never eclipsed his passion as an art-historian. His first book, The Station, was quickly followed by The Byzantine Achievement and The Birth of Western Painting. His second travel book, First Russia, then Tibet was published in 1933, and was a prelude to his most famous work, The Road to Oxiana (1937). He was also a hard-working journalist and a passionate conservationist, founding the Georgian Group. Robert Byron drowned just two days short of his thirty-sixth birthday, when his ship was torpedoed off the north coast of Scotland in 1941. He was travelling to Persia as a war correspondent also working with wartime intelligence.

No better portrait of the Holy Mountain exists than this: nor is it likely to be surpassed in the future. Here in short is a classic. And a classic it will remain. John Julius Norwich

Robert Byron, like his famous namesake Lord Byron (no relation), was a traveller who wrote about his travels. Both of them battled against tyranny, fell in love with Greece and died young. Byron was born 26 February 1905 in Wembley, London. He read history at Oxford, and became one of the bright young things that included Harold Acton, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford and Emerald Cunard, though these friendships never eclipsed his passion as an art-historian. His first book, The Station, was quickly followed by The Byzantine Achievement and The Birth of Western Painting. His second travel book, First Russia, then Tibet was published in 1933, and was a prelude to his most famous work, The Road to Oxiana (1937). He was also a hard-working journalist and a passionate conservationist, founding the Georgian Group. Robert Byron drowned just two days short of his thirty-sixth birthday, when his ship was torpedoed off the north coast of Scotland in 1941. He was travelling to Persia as a war correspondent also working with wartime intelligence.

No better portrait of the Holy Mountain exists than this: nor is it likely to be surpassed in the future. Here in short is a classic. And a classic it will remain. John Julius Norwich

Robert Byron, like his famous namesake Lord Byron (no relation), was a traveller who wrote about his travels. Both of them battled against tyranny, fell in love with Greece and died young. Byron was born 26 February 1905 in Wembley, London. He read history at Oxford, and became one of the bright young things that included Harold Acton, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford and Emerald Cunard, though these friendships never eclipsed his passion as an art-historian. His first book, The Station, was quickly followed by The Byzantine Achievement and The Birth of Western Painting. His second travel book, First Russia, then Tibet was published in 1933, and was a prelude to his most famous work, The Road to Oxiana (1937). He was also a hard-working journalist and a passionate conservationist, founding the Georgian Group. Robert Byron drowned just two days short of his thirty-sixth birthday, when his ship was torpedoed off the north coast of Scotland in 1941. He was travelling to Persia as a war correspondent also working with wartime intelligence.

No better portrait of the Holy Mountain exists than this: nor is it likely to be surpassed in the future. Here in short is a classic. And a classic it will remain. John Julius Norwich