Robert Herring (Robert Herring Williams, b. 13 May 1903, Wandsworth – December 1975, Chelsea) was a novelist, essayist and poet, remembered as an early writer on film, being film critic of The Guardian for most of the 1930s, a regular contributor to the modernist film magazine Close Up, and later editor of the literary magazine, Life and Letters To-day from 1935 to 1950. Biography His father, Arthur Herring Williams (1854-1906), made a substantial fortune in business in South Africa but died in England whilst Herring was still a child. An elder brother, Ernest Arthur Williams (1896-1978) remained in Kokstad, South Africa to manage the family interests but Robert and his mother stayed in Britain. Herring was a cousin of the British writer, translator and polymath Edward Heron-Allen. He was educated at Clifton College, Bristol and possibly also at Tonbridge School, in Kent. At Clifton he was a protege of R.P. Keigwin. Herring would remain friendly with his former tutor for the rest of Keigwin's life. He then took a second class degree in the English Tripos at Kings College, Cambridge, where his tutor was F.L. Lucas, graduating in 1924. At Cambridge he was associated with the group around Ivor Montagu and Angus McPhail, publishing his poetry regularly in Montagu's magazine, The Cambridge Mercury. He associated with the "Bright Young Things" in mid 1920s London, being friends with Inez Holden, and invited to Elizabeth Ponsonby's notorious "Bath and Bottle Party" of 13 July 1928. For most of the late 1920s and 1930s Herring lived in a large new apartment at 1 Irvine Court, Porchester Terrace, to the north of Hyde Park, sharing it with his mother, a maid and a chauffeur. The building was destroyed in 1940 by a direct hit during the Blitz. When the lease expired in September 1937 Herring's mother, Clara Helena Williams, née Spillman (1869-1940), with maid and chauffeur, moved to a new home in Eastbourne, where she lived until her death in 1940. In June 1937 Herring moved to 52, Upper Cheyne Row, in Chelsea, sharing it until early 1938 with a friend, Johnny Cole, a 22 year old former soldier in the Grenadier Guards. Writing career He began his writing career with a whimsical, fictional travelogue set in Andorra, The President’s Hat (1926) whilst also undertaking editorial work and introductions for a series of new editions of English comedies of manners for the highly reputable