Derrick Leon
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Derrick Lewis Leon (1908–1944) was a British author, who was born in London in 1908, and died of tuberculosis in November 1944, aged 36, shortly after completing the first draft of his biography of
John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...
(''Ruskin: The Great Victorian''), published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1949. Leon made his living as an interior decorator, but by the time of his death, he had earned himself a reputation as a fine biographer, with works on
Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
and Marcel Proust. Leon had also published three novels before his death. The first one, ''Livingstones; A Novel of Contemporary Life'' was published in 1933; ''Wilderness'' was published in 1935; and ''Green for a Season'' was published in 1938. His biography of Ruskin cast new light on John Ruskin's personal tragedies, as well as his public life and his work. After Leon's death, his biography of Ruskin was subjected to a quotation check and grammatical corrections by George Leon, his brother, who was a quantity-surveyor by profession. {{DEFAULTSORT:Leon, Derrick 20th-century British male writers 1908 births 1944 deaths 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in England 20th-century British novelists British male novelists British biographers