English journalist and author, born in Leicester, in 1858; educated in Paris and at Harvard University, where he graduated in 1881, and took a two-years’ post-graduate course at Leipsic. He then was engaged on the Pall Mall Gazette, London, for four years, and, on account of his proficiency in languages, was sent on several important missions abroad. Having inherited a small fortune, in 1888 he began to travel in the far East, visiting China, Siberia, Korea, Japan, Tonquin and Malaya; he visited the Franco-Chinese frontier, crossed Korea on horseback, exploring a hitherto unknown portion of the Malay peninsula, being the first European to pass through the upper part of the closed native state of Kelantan. He became in 1892 a member of the editorial staff of the Daily Chronicle of London; was put in charge of the literary page, and in 1895 became assistant to the editor-in-chief, H. W. Massingham. He was sent to Constantinople to report on the Armenian atrocities; and from there, in 1895, he proceeded to Washington, DC, to ascertain the facts as to the Monroe doctrine. He made an exhaustive investigation of the matter, and was able to throw much light upon the subject. On his return to London from his Eastern travels he married Menie Muriel Dowie, who had traveled alone in masculine attire through the wildest parts of Europe, and who published an account of her experiences in a work entitled A Girl in the Carpathian Mountains. Mr. Norman published several works, his first appearing the year of his graduation at Harvard. Its title was The Performance of Œdipus Tyrannus at Harvard, which was followed later, as the result of his traveling, with The Real Japan (1891); The Peoples and Politics of the Far East (1894); and Round the Near East (1895).
