John Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross, (1904-1976), was a writer noted for his biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and other works in Islamic historiography. He was educated at the University of Oxford. In 1938 he married Angela Mary Culme-Seymour, daughter of George Culme-Seymour and Janet (née Orr-Ewing), and formerly the wife of the artist John Spencer-Churchill. They were divorced in 1942 whereupon Angela married the Comte de Chatellus. She was the model for "the bolter" in Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love. Despite the brief marriage, Balfour was homosexual. He had no issue and was succeeded by his brother David Andrew Balfour, 4th Baron Kinross. (On Balfour's homosexuality see Candida Lycett Green, ed. and introduction, John Betjeman: Letters [2 vols, London: Methuen, 1994, reprinted 2006], i, 44).
Books
- Within the Taurus: A Journey in Asiatic Turkey (1954)
- Europa Minor: Journeys in Coastal Turkey (1956)
- Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation (1960)
- Atatürk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal, Father of Modern Turkey (1965)
- Portrait of Egypt (1966)
- Windsor Years: The Life of Edward, as Prince of Wales, King, and Duke of Windsor (1967)
- Between Two Seas: The Creation of the Suez Canal (1968)
- Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (1977) ISBN 0-688-08093-6
