author
1870–1931
A prolific early-20th-century writer, he moved easily between art, sport, military history, and local heritage. His books on cricket, guerrilla warfare, and the painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema show a talent for making specialized subjects lively and readable.
by Percy Cross Standing
Born in 1870 and dying in 1931, Percy Cross Standing was a British author and editor whose work ranged across several very different fields. Surviving catalog and digitized-book records confirm him as the author of books including Cricket of To-Day and Yesterday (1902), Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A. (1905), Guerilla Leaders of the World (1913), and Anglo-Australian Cricket 1862–1926.
He seems to have been especially drawn to subjects with strong personalities and vivid detail. In sport, he wrote substantial books on cricket; in art, he produced a contemporary study of Lawrence Alma-Tadema; and in history, he wrote on warfare and edited Memorials of Old Hertfordshire (1905), a volume devoted to the county’s past. That range suggests a writer comfortable both with popular subjects and with more documentary, research-based work.
Reliable biographical detail about his personal life appears limited in easily accessible sources, so it is safest to remember him chiefly through his books. Taken together, they present a versatile Edwardian-era man of letters with a gift for turning enthusiasm and careful compilation into engaging nonfiction.