W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1878, he studied at Stanford University and Jesus College, Oxford, where he worked in anthropology and folklore. Early in his career he became interested in Celtic tradition, and his first major book, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (1911), grew out of fieldwork in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man.

He is most often remembered for his books on Tibetan religion. After traveling in Asia, he worked with the Tibetan scholar and translator Kazi Dawa-Samdup on English versions of important texts, including The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927), Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa (1928), and Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (1935). These books played a major part in shaping early Western interest in Tibetan Buddhism, even if later scholars have debated some of his interpretations.

His interests were broad and strongly spiritual as well as academic, and he remained associated with comparative religion and Theosophical circles through much of his life. He died in 1965, leaving behind a body of work that helped many readers encounter Tibetan and Celtic traditions for the first time.