Layard of Nineveh

Bibliographic Data

ID5292580
AuthorsSeton Lloyd, Gordon Waterfield
Year1964
Volume130
Issue1
Pages161
Publication date1964-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1794330
OpenAlexW1966488599
LanguageEN
Citations received12

As Austen Henry Layard hovered throughout the greater part of his extraordinary career between eminence and eccentricity he became a prolific writer of letters, memoirs, and papers of the widest range of interest, and this is valuable material for the writer who cares to explore it in depth. Very little of it has been published except for the first part of his career down to 1851. For this we have his two famous books on the excavations at Nineveh and Kuyunjik (1845-1851), and his Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylon (the pre-Nineveh story), published in 1887; two volumes of Autobiography and Letters, published in 1903 after his death, also deal with the story of his early life down to 1851, with a brief sketch of his parliamentary career to 1869 by Sir Arthur Otway. But he left unpublished two long accounts of his embassies at Madrid (1869-1877) and at Constantinople (1877-1880), together with great collections of letters to colleagues which are indispensable for a study of his years as under-secretary to the Foreign Office and for the two embassies. Being an eminent Victorian he directed that the memoirs should be published only when 'the public interest will permit, and those who might be injured or offended by [them] have passed away.' Both these conditions have now been fulfilled, but will they ever be published? The moment has surely passed, and a biographer who seeks to write within the compass of present day interests and limitations of space can give little more than an outline of the official activities of a man of Layard's standing, prominent but not preeminent, in the country's public life

Geography · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology

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