Ben Downing (writer)
Ben Downing (born April 17, 1967) is an American writer, editor, and teacher. Specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British social life and literature (with a particular emphasis on travel writing), he has written essays, articles, and reviews on figures such as Robert Louis Stevenson,[1] Duff Cooper,[2] Robert Byron,[3] Anthony Powell,[4] Peter Fleming,[5] Wilfred Thesiger,[6] and Patrick Leigh Fermor.[7] His biography of Janet Ross, who for many years was the doyenne of Florence’s Anglo-American colony, was published in 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.[8]
Downing also writes poetry. His collection The Calligraphy Shop appeared in 2003, and he continues to publish poems in The Atlantic,[9] The New Criterion,[10] The Yale Review,[11] and elsewhere.
Since 1993 Downing has worked at Parnassus: Poetry in Review, of which he is currently the co-editor.[12] He has taught literary seminars and workshops at Columbia,[8] Bryn Mawr,[13] and the 92nd St. Y,[14] and he currently teaches a small private class, known as The English Salon, for advanced non-native speakers of English. He lives in New York City.
Works
Books
- Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), biography
- The Calligraphy Shop (Zoo Press, 2003), poetry
Poems
- "Umbrage" in The Atlantic
- "Calle Plácida Luz de la Luna" in The Atlantic
- "Inshallah" in The Atlantic
- "Domestic Cappadocia" in The New Criterion
Articles
- "A Visit with Patrick Leigh Fermor" in The Paris Review
- "Philhellene's Progress: Patrick Leigh Fermor" in The New Criterion
- "John Addington Symonds & Janet Ross: A Friendship" in The New Criterion
- "I.M. Shusha Guppy, 1935-2008" in The New Criterion
- "Peter Fleming at 100" in The New Criterion
- "In the Empty Quarter" in The New Criterion
- "Duff Cooper's Game Book" in The New Criterion
- "In Memoriam: Louis Auchincloss (1917–2010)" in The New Criterion
- "One Gentleman of Verona" in The Wall Street Journal
- "Mum's the Word" in The Wall Street Journal
- "A Troubadour on the Moors" in The Wall Street Journal
- "Love's Pestilence" in The New York Times Book Review
- "Modern Homer Unmasked as a Mythical Figure" in The Guardian
References
- ↑ "An Old Gypsy Nature," The New Criterion, June 1998
- ↑ "Duff Cooper's Game Book," The New Criterion, March 2006
- ↑ "Insolent Humanism," The New Criterion, March 2004
- ↑ "Of Osberts and Evelyns," The New Criterion, May 2001
- ↑ "Peter Fleming at 100," The New Criterion, May 2007
- ↑ "On the Outlandish Life of Wilfred Thesiger," The New Criterion, November 2006
- ↑ "Philhellene's Progress: Patrick Leigh Fermor," The New Criterion, January 2001
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Author page, Irene Skolnick Literary Agency
- ↑ Author page at The Atlantic
- ↑ Author page at The New Criterion
- ↑ Contributors page at The Yale Review
- ↑ Staff at Parnassus: Poetry in Review
- ↑ Classes at Bryn Mawr
- ↑ Classes at the 92nd St. Y
