Arnold Henry Savage Landor

Born in Florence in 1865, Arnold Henry Savage Landor was an English painter, explorer, writer, and anthropologist. He came from a literary family—his grandfather was the poet Walter Savage Landor—and he trained as an artist before becoming known for his travels and travel writing.

Landor journeyed widely in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, visiting places including Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Persia. Those travels fed a long list of books, among them Corea; or, Cho-sen, the Land of the Morning Calm and In the Forbidden Land, works that helped build his reputation as a bold and sometimes dramatic recorder of remote and difficult journeys.

Alongside his writing, he was also active as a painter and illustrator, bringing a strong visual sense to his descriptions. He died in Florence in 1924, leaving behind a body of travel literature that still offers a lively glimpse of how one restless, highly observant writer saw the world.