Editing Perceval Landon (section)

==Life and career==
He was educated at [[Forest School, Walthamstow|Forest School]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Foster|first1=Joseph|title=Oxford Men and their Colleges 1880–1892|date=1893|publisher=J. Parker|location=Oxford|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Oxford_men_and_their_colleges.djvu/719|accessdate=27 February 2017}}</ref> and [[Hertford College]], [[Oxford]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Who Was Who|publisher=A&C Black|ref=s.v. Perceval Landon}}</ref> He matriculated in October 1888, obtained Third Class Honours in Classical Moderations in 1890, and graduated with Third Class Honours in Law in 1892.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Foster|first1=Joseph|title=Oxford Men and their Colleges 1880–1892|date=1893|publisher=J. Parker|location=Oxford|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Oxford_men_and_their_colleges.djvu/719|accessdate=27 February 2017}}</ref> While at Oxford, he was one of the original subscribers to John Woodward and George Burnett's ''Treatise on Heraldry British and Foreign'' (1892), and he had a lifelong interest in [[heraldry]]. He was Secretary of the [[Oxford Union]] in 1891.<ref>{{cite IBD1915|wstitle= Landon, Perceval |volume= 13.1 |page= 245 |year=1915|short=1}}</ref>  

He was called to the Bar by the [[Inner Temple]] but in 1899–1900 he was War Correspondent of ''[[The Times]]'' during the [[South African War]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Who Was Who|publisher=A&C Black|ref=s.v. Perceval Landon}}</ref> He was also involved, with his close and lifelong friend [[Rudyard Kipling]] and others, in a daily paper called ''The Friend''<ref>{{cite book|title=Who Was Who|publisher=A&C Black|ref=s.v. Perceval Landon}}</ref> started by [[Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts|Lord Roberts]] in [[Bloemfontein]] during the [[Boer War]]. This South African experience launched a career of world travel, journalism, and other writing, so that he described himself in ''Who's Who'' as ''"special correspondent, dramatist, and author"''.

At a meeting of the Royal Society of Arts in 1915, [[George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|Lord Curzon of Kedleston]], former [[Viceroy]] of [[India]], described Landon as "''a writer of exceptional ability on Eastern and other questions''" and "''an authority second to none on the geography and politics of what was commonly called the Middle East''."<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Arts|date=23 April 1915|volume=63|page=505|title=Proceedings of the Society}}</ref>

His best known non-fiction work is ''The opening of Tibet'' (1905), which he wrote after joining the [[British expedition to Tibet]] in 1903–1904; the book is subtitled "''an account of Lhasa and the country and people of central Tibet and of the progress of the mission sent there by the English government in the year 1903-4''". In this book, Landon was one of the first Europeans to describe the holy city of [[Lhasa]] in detail.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Valentine|first1=Mark|title=Perceval Landon: A Book of Shadows|url=http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/perceval-landon-book-of-shadows.html|website=Wormwoodiana|date=7 June 2012 |accessdate=9 June 2016}}</ref>

He was also the author of a book of 13 original short stories, ''Raw Edges'', published by William Heinemann, London, in 1908, with lithograph illustrations by Alberto Martini. The most successful and enduring of these stories was ''Thurnley Abbey''; but also included were psychological suspense stories ''Railhead'' and ''The Gyroscope'' (which is about a horrifying juggernaut running amok in a crowded auditorium).

Landon was private secretary to the Governor of [[New South Wales]] [[William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp]], 1900.<ref>{{cite book|title=Who Was Who|publisher=A&C Black|ref=s.v. Perceval Landon}}</ref> In 1898 he and Beauchamp had holidayed in Paris. In 1903 he was special correspondent of the [[Daily Mail]] at the [[Delhi Durbar]], in China, in Japan and in [[Siberia]]; in 1903–1904 he was special correspondent of ''The Times'' on the [[British expedition to Tibet|British military expedition]] to [[Lhasa]], Tibet; in 1905–1906 he was special correspondent of ''The Times'' for the [[George V of the United Kingdom#Prince of Wales|Prince of Wales]]' visit to India; and after that he was in [[Persia]], [[India]], and [[Nepal]], 1908; [[Russian Turkestan]] 1909; [[Egypt]] and [[Sudan]] 1910; on the [[North-East Frontier Agency|North Eastern Frontier of India]] and at the Delhi Durbar, 1911; in [[Mesopotamia]] and [[Syria]], 1912; in [[Scandinavia]] and [[World War I|behind the British and French lines]] in 1914–1915; behind the Italian lines and to the Vatican in 1917 (the war and Vatican visits with Kipling<ref>[[Charles Carrington (British Army officer)|Carrington, C. E.]] ([http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/carrington.htm Charles Edmund]), (1955) ''The life of Rudyard Kipling'', Garden City, N.Y.: [[Doubleday & Co.]], pp. 336, 345.</ref>); at the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919]]; in [[Constantinople]], 1920; in India, [[British Mandate of Mesopotamia|Mesopotamia]], [[Syria]], and [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] 1921; on the [[Edward VIII of the United Kingdom#Prince of Wales|Prince of Wales]]' tour of India and Japan, 1921–1922; in China and North America 1922; at the [[Treaty of Lausanne|Peace Conference in Lausanne]], 1923; in China, Nepal and Egypt 1924; and in China in 1925<ref>{{cite book|title=Who Was Who|publisher=A&C Black|ref=s.v. Perceval Landon}}</ref> (source except where noted: ''Who Was Who'').

By this time, in 1925, Landon was 57 and had travelled constantly since the age of 21. Landon from 1912 had the use of Keylands, a cottage in the grounds of Kipling's house, [[Batemans]], in [[Sussex]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ricketts|first1=Harry|authorlink = Harry Ricketts |title=The Unforgiving Minute – A Life of Rudyard Kipling|date=1999|publisher=Chatto & Windus|location=London|page=335}}</ref> His London residence was, from 1907, at [[Pall Mall, London|Pall Mall]] Place, [[St James's]], and, by the time of his death in 1927, his final address (from ''Who's Who'') was 1 The Studios, Gunter Grove, [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]], London.<ref>{{cite book|title=Who Was Who|publisher=A&C Black|ref=s.v. Perceval Landon}}</ref>

On 22 January 1927, his old friend [[Rudyard Kipling]] wrote to his former employer [[William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp|Lord Beauchamp]] saying Landon had ''"crocked badly"'', blaming ''"exposure and over-work"''. He asked Beauchamp to ''"keep a kindly eye on him"'' while Kipling was sailing to South America and added, in a postscript, ''"If when he gets better, he has to go on a milk and egg diet, you could see that he gets good country stuff. I can't arrange this from my farms, in my absence."''<ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Pinney|editor-first1=Thomas|title=The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, Volume 5 (1920–1930)|date=2014|publisher=University of Iowa Press|isbn=978-0877458982|page=[https://archive.org/details/lettersofrudyard0000kipl/page/334 334]|url=https://archive.org/details/lettersofrudyard0000kipl/page/334}}</ref>

But Landon died, a day later, on 23 January 1927. He was unmarried.

Kipling was too upset to go to the funeral, but his poem ''A Song in the Desert'' ''"was a lament for a friend he had loved"''.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lycett|first1=Andrew|title=Rudyard Kipling|date=1999|publisher=Hachette, UK|page=453}}</ref> The poem is dedicated: "P. L. OB. JAN. 1927".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Kipling|first1=Rudyard|title=A Song in the Desert|url=http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/song_in_desert.html|website=Poetry Lovers Page|accessdate=22 March 2016}}</ref> The Kipling Society says it reflects ''"his many travels in the wild places of the world, his uncomplaining endurance of dangers and discomforts, his magical tales, lightly told, and his shrewd criticism of Kipling's own work"''.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Song in the Desert – notes by John McGivering and John Radcliffe|url=http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_songindesert1.htm|website=The Kipling Society|accessdate=8 September 2016}}</ref>