H. V. F. Winstone

Who was H. V. F. Winstone?

Harry Victor Frederick Winstone FRGS, known as "Victor", was an English author and journalist, who specialised in Middle Eastern topics. He wrote biographies of several influential figures in the history of this region.

Victor Winstone worked as a reporter and features writer with weekly journals and a financial features agency from 1947 to 1950. He was an industrial journal editor and press advisor to Royal Doulton and others during the 1950s and 60s. From 1970 to 1982, he was a freelance writer and magazine editor, chiefly of journals about decorative and applied arts. He also wrote for industrial and commercial publications and was the supervisory editor of the English edition of Automobile World.

From 1975 to 1990, he was freelance special features writer for The Guardian, book reviewer for The Daily Telegraph, and was a contributor to Connoisseur, The Times, and various specialist journals.

Winstone’s first biography was published in 1976 to positive reviews: Captain Shakespear: A Portrait, a study of the explorer William Shakespear. A series of critically well-regarded books followed, mainly biographies of British figures associated with the nineteenth and twentieth century history of the Middle East, such as Gertrude Bell, Gerard Leachman, Leonard Woolley, Howard Carter and Lady Anne Blunt.