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Edwin Orr Denby 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, Dancers, Buildings, and People in the Streets and Dance Writings. His works of poetry include In Public, In Private, Mediterranean Cities, Snoring in New York, Collected Poems and The Complete Poems. 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 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 to China for an unprecedented 13 years, died when Edwin was one. Edwin spent his childhood first in Shanghai, then in Vienna, where his father served as consul general from 1909-1915, before coming to the United States in 1916. He was educated at Hotchkiss, and attended Harvard but failed to graduate. He also attended classes at the University of Vienna, before obtaining a diploma in gymnastics at the Hellerau-Laxenburg school in Vienna in 1928. He performed for several years, notably with the State Theater of Darmstadt and celebrated triumphs alongside Claire Eckstein, German ballerina and choreographer.
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