AE096 Sir Harry Perry Robinson Adventurer Extraordinaire

Harry Perry Robinson’s life story unfolds like a ‘Boy’s Own’ adventure novel from a bygone age. Born in India in 1859, he was sent off to boarding school in England before going on to Oxford and then devoting most of his adult life to writing and journalism. Along the way he sailed across the Atlantic and travelled to the American West where he took part in the last great ‘Gold Rush’ of the 1880s. After that, he ventured into the booming U.S. Railroad business and made himself wealthy before becoming involved in American politics and helping to elect Republican contender William McKinley into the White House. During this same time he married, divorced, remarried and became, for a time, a U.S. citizen. Throughout this entire period he continued to write and his work appeared in leading journals and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic as well as elsewhere in the English-speaking world. By 1900, he decided to return to Britain and move into the book publishing business where he championed, among others, the noted American writer, Jack London. As before, Harry continued his writing and was widely recognized for his reporting and his ‘ringside seat’ at some of the most exciting and dramatic events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For most of his journalistic life his most successful professional partnership was with The Times of London which provided him with a roving commission to write about people, places and events the world over. During the First World War he was the paper’s premier ‘War Correspondent’ and actually spent more time at the Front than any of his fellow journalists. For his wartime service he was knighted by King George Ⅴ and shortly thereafter was selected by The Times to report on Lord Carnarvon’s Expedition to uncover Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Sir Harry was present at the excavation site when Howard Carter, the famed archaeologist and Lord Carnarvon actually broke through into the almost intact burial chamber of the young Egyptian pharaoh. This newest ‘King Tut’- related figure shows Sir Harry standing next to his camera and tripod as he photographs some of the ancient treasures as they were recovered from the tomb following the excavation.