Edwin Orr Denby (February 4, 1903 – July 12, 1983) was one of the most important and influential American dance critics of the 20th century, as well as a poet and novelist. 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 works of poetry include In Public, In Private (1948), Mediterranean Cities (1956), Snoring in New Yor...
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Edwin Orr Denby (February 4, 1903 – July 12, 1983) was one of the most important and influential American dance critics of the 20th century, as well as a poet and novelist. 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 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's Tao Teh Ching 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.
The son of Charles Denby, Jr. and Martha Dalzell Orr, Edwin was born in Tientsin, China in 1903, where Charles had been appointed as Chief foreign advisor to Yuan Shikai a year earlier. Edwin's grandfather, Charles Harvey Denby, who had served as United States Ambassador...
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