English classical scholar, writer, academic, and Professor in Poetry. Born in China to English parents, he was evacuated to Japan due to the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. In 1903 the family returned to England and settled in Kent. In 1905 he and his older brother were left in the care of their paternal grandmother in Putney while their parents returned to China. The boys attended a preparatory school in which Maurice, except for arithmetic, performed outstandingly well, particularly in regards to classical education. They also received tuition from Ella Dell, writer Ethel M. Dell's sister. In 1910, after travelling with his brother and father, Bowra began his studies at Cheltenham College and started following his inclinations for the Classics. He travelled again for some time and on his return, he trained with the OTC in Oxford before being called up to serve in the Royal Field Artillery in 1917. Throughout the war he continued to read the works he enjoyed, especially those by Greek and Latin authors. Bowra's experience during World War I affected him deeply, and, although the tragic events inspired his poetic side, he would hardly ever talk about the war. He continued his study of the classic world and he was later elected a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, in 1922. He became a Doctor of Letters in 1937 and was elected to the post of Warden of Wadham in 1938, which he kept until 1970. During the Second World War, as he served in the Oxford Home Guard, he was noted for his firm opposition to the Nazi regime. The following years saw him delivering several lectures and he also lived in America. He was President of the British Academy from 1958 to 1962 and responsible for the establishment of the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran. He became an honorary fellow of Wadham and was awarded, honoris causa, the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. He also received honorary doctorates from several universities and was knighted in 1951. He was a Commandeur of the Légion d'honneur in France, a Knight-Commander of the Royal Order of the Phoenix in Greece, and recipient of the order "Pour le Mérite" in West Germany. Among his writings, we find "Pindar's Pythian Odes" (1928), "Oxford Book of Greek Verse" (1930), "Tradition and Design in the Iliad" (1930), "Ancient Greek Literature" (1933), "Pindari Carmina" (1935; 1947 2nd edition), "Greek Lyric Poetry: from Alcman to Simonides" (Oxford 1936), "Oxford Book of Greek Poetry in Translation" (1937), "Early Greek Elegists" (1938), "The Heritage of Symbolism" (1943), "A Book of Russian Verse" (1943), "Sophoclean Tragedy" (1944), "From Virgil to Milton" (1945), "A Second Book of Russian Verse" (1948), "The Creative Experiment" (1949), "The Romantic Imagination" (1950), "Heroic Poetry" (1952), "Problems in Greek Poetry" (1953), "Inspiration and Poetry" (1955), "Homer and his Forerunners, The Greek Experience" (1957), "Primitive Song" (1962), "In General and Particular" (1964), "Pindar" (1964), "Landmarks in Greek Literature" (1966), "Poetry and Politics, 1900–1960" (1966), "Memories 1898–1939" (1966), "The Odes of Pindar" (1969), "On Greek Margins" (1970), "Periclean Athens" (1971), and "Homer" (1972). A gay man, he never married and retired in 1970. He died the following year.