Edwin Orr Denby (February 4, 1903 – July 12, 1983) was an American writer of dance criticism, poetry, and a novel, but is perhaps now best known for his work with

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is among the greatest and most influential film ...

in translating and adapting the 1851 French comedy '' The Italian Straw Hat'' to the American stage in 1936 in the form of the

farce Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical comedy, physical humor; the use of delibe ...

Horse Eats Hat ''Horse Eats Hat'' is a 1936 farce play co-written and directed by Orson Welles (at the time 21 years of age) and presented under the auspices of the Federal Theatre Project. It was Welles's second WPA production, after his highly successful '' ...

''.

Early life, education and early career

The son of Charles Denby, Jr. and Martha Dalzell Orr, Edwin was born in

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

,Poetry Foundation
"Edwin Denby"
where Charles had been appointed as chief foreign advisor to

Yuan Shikai Yuan Shikai (; 16 September 18596 June 1916) was a Chinese general and statesman who served as the second provisional president and the first official president of the Republic of China, head of the Beiyang government from 1912 to 1916 and ...

a year earlier. Edwin's grandfather,

Charles Harvey Denby Colonel Charles Denby (June 16, 1830 – January 13, 1904) was a U.S. Union officer in the Civil War and diplomat. He was the father of Edwin C. Denby, a U.S. Representative from Michigan, and later Secretary of the Navy, and Charles Denby ...

, who had served as the

United States Ambassador to China The United States ambassador to China is the chief United States diplomat to the People's Republic of China. The United States has sent diplomatic representatives to China since 1844, when Caleb Cushing, as commissioner, negotiated the Treaty ...

for an unprecedented 13 years, died when Edwin was age one. Edwin's namesake uncle served as

Secretary of the Navy The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On March 25, 2025, John Phelan was confirm ...

during 1921–1924. Denby spent his childhood first in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

, China, then in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Austria, where his father served as

consul general A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries. A consu ...

from 1909 to 1915, before coming to the United States in 1916. He was educated at the

Hotchkiss School The Hotchkiss School is a private college-preparatory day and boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut. It educates approximately 600 students in grades 9–12, plus postgraduates. Founded in 1891, it was one of the first English-style boardi ...

in Lakeville,

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

; and attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, but failed to graduate. He also attended classes at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

, before obtaining a diploma in gymnastics (with specialty in

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert dance, concert or theatrical dance which includes dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th ...

) at the Hellerau-Laxenburg school in Vienna in 1928. He performed for several years, notably with the Darmstadt State Theater and celebrated triumphs alongside

Claire Eckstein Claire (Cläre) Eckstein (8 July 1904 – 25 September 1994) was a German modern dancer and choreographer. Life Born in Allendorf (Hesse) the daughter of a Protestant pastor, Eckstein received her early training at Lucy Heyer's school of rhyt ...

, a German ballerina and choreographer. Looking for someone to take his passport photo, he encountered photographer and filmmaker

Rudy Burckhardt Rudy Burckhardt (né Rudolph August Burckhardt; April 6, 1914 – August 1, 1999) was a Swiss-American filmmaker, and photographer, known for his photographs of the hand-painted billboards that began to dominate the American landscape in the 1940s ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

in 1934, and the two remained inseparable for the rest of Denby's life. The following year, they returned to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, and rented a loft for eighteen dollars a month in a five-story walk-up building on West 21st Street in Chelsea. Denby's friendship with painter

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

, who lived one floor below in the adjacent building, began shortly thereafter when de Kooning's kitten turned up on the fire-escape outside of Denby's window one evening.

Writing

In 1935, soon after Denby's return to New York City,

and

John Houseman John Houseman (born Jacques Haussmann; September 22, 1902 – October 31, 1988) was a Romanians, Romanian-born British Americans, British-American theatre and film producer, actor, director, and teacher. He became known for his highly publ ...

asked him to help translate and adapt '' The Italian Straw Hat'', by

Eugene Labiche Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Gene Eugene, stage name of Canadian born actor, record producer, engineer, composer and musi ...

and

Marc-Michel Marc-Antoine-Amédée Michel, known as Marc-Michel (22 July 1812 in Marseille – 12 March 1868 in Paris) was a French poet, playwright and journalist. He is perhaps best known today for the 1851 farce he co-wrote with Eugène Marin Labiche, '' Th ...

, for the

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

stage. The resulting play, titled ''

'', was scored by

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

, and was performed as a

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

Federal Theatre Production in 1936. Denby also appeared in the play, playing one half of ''The Horse''. During his lifetime, being ambivalent about the publication of his poetry, he was known primarily as a dance critic. At the behest of

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, critic, writer, teacher, pianist, and conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the "Dean of American Compos ...

and

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...

, he began writing a dance column for the magazine '' Modern Music'' in 1936. In 1943, Thomson drafted Denby as the dance critic for the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...

''.

Works

His dance reviews and essays were collected in ''Looking at the Dance'' (1949, reprinted 1968), ''Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Streets'' (1965) and ''Dance Writings'' (1986). His small book on

was published by

Hanuman Books Hanuman Books (named after the Hindu monkey god Hanuman) was originally a 50 book series of very small books, formatted to resemble Indian prayer books. In 1986 Hanuman Books was founded and published by American art critic Raymond Foye and arti ...

in 1988. Denby's works of poetry include ''In Public, In Private'' (1948), ''Mediterranean Cities'' (1956), ''Snoring in New York'' (1974), ''Collected Poems'' (1975) and ''The Complete Poems'' (1986). His English translation of

Lao Tze Laozi (), also romanized as Lao Tzu among other ways, was a semi-legendary Chinese philosopher and author of the ''Tao Te Ching'' (''Laozi''), one of the foundational texts of Taoism alongside the ''Zhuangzi''. The name, literally meaning ' ...

Chinese classic text The Chinese classics or canonical texts are the works of Chinese literature authored prior to the establishment of the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Prominent examples include the Four Books and Five Classics in the Neo-Confucian traditi ...

Tao Te Ching The ''Tao Te Ching'' () or ''Laozi'' is a Chinese classic text and foundational work of Taoism traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship and date of composition and compilation are debated. The oldest excavated por ...

'' from a German edition was published as ''Edwin's Tao'' in 1993. Denby's only novel, ''Mrs. W's Last Sandwich'' (also released as ''Scream in a Cave'') was published in 1972.

Guggenheim Fellow

In 1948, he was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

grant in poetry and dance criticism.

Death and legacy

On July 12, 1983, at the summer house he maintained with Burckhardt in Searsmont

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

, he committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills; he had been ill and increasingly concerned about the loss of his mental powers. Denby was inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in 2002.

References

External links

*
Jacket Magazine's Edwin Denby feature

{{DEFAULTSORT:Denby, Edwin 1903 births 1983 suicides 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American poets 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American translators American expatriates in Austria American expatriates in China American dance critics American male journalists 20th-century American journalists American magazine writers American male novelists American newspaper writers Chelsea, Manhattan Dance writers Drug-related suicides in Maine English-language poets German–English translators Harvard University alumni Hotchkiss School alumni New York Herald Tribune people People from Searsmont, Maine Poets from Maine Poets from New York (state) University of Vienna alumni Novelists from Maine Writers from Manhattan American male poets American male dramatists and playwrights Novelists from New York (state) People from Chelsea, Manhattan 1983 deaths 20th-century American male writers National Book Critics Circle Award winners