author
R. B. (Richard Baxter) Townshend
1846–1923
An Oxford don with a taste for adventure, he turned years spent ranching in Colorado and Texas into lively travel writing and fiction. He is also remembered as the “R.B.T.” portrayed in Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
2 Audiobooks
Gunpowder Treason and Plot, and Other Stories for Boys
by Harold Avery, R. B. (Richard Baxter) Townshend, Frederick Whishaw
Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine
by R. B. (Richard Baxter) Townshend
About the author
Born in County Cork in 1846, Richard Baxter Townshend studied at Cambridge and later became a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. Before settling into academic life, he spent several years in the American West, including time in Colorado and Texas as a ranch owner, experiences that later fed directly into his books.
Townshend wrote both fiction and nonfiction, including western and travel-themed works such as the Tenderfoot books and Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine. His writing is often noted for drawing on firsthand experience, which gives it an easy, observant sense of place.
He also has a small but memorable place in music history: Edward Elgar used him as the inspiration for the “R.B.T.” variation in Enigma Variations. Townshend died in 1923.