Maurice Baring

Maurice Baring OBE (27 April 1874 - 14 December 1945) was an English playwright, poet, novelist, translator, and essayist, as well as a travel writer and war correspondent with a particular interest in Russia. Baring served in the Intelligence Corps and the Royal Air Force during World War I. Edward Charles Baring, first Baron Revelstoke, of the Baring banking dynasty, and his wife Louisa Emily Charlotte Bulteel, granddaughter of the second Earl Grey, had Baring as their eighth and fifth child. He was born in Mayfair and attended Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. After an unsuccessful diplomatic career, he traveled extensively, particularly in Russia, where he lived in 1905-06. He wrote for the London Morning Post as an eyewitness to the Russo-Japanese War. When he returned to London, he lived at 6 North Street, Westminster, at North Cottage. He joined the Royal Flying Corps at the start of World War I and worked as an assistant to David Henderson and Hugh Trenchard in France. Throughout the war, he wrote with Lady Juliet Duff, the widow of Sir Robin Duff, 2nd Baronet of Vaynol, who was killed on 16 October 1914 while serving with the 2nd Life Guards near Oostnieuwekirke. Dear Animated Bust: Letters to Lady Juliet Duff was the title given to these letters after they were published.