Ivor Forbes Guest was born in Chislehurst, Kent, England on April 20, 1920. As a lawyer, he became a senior partner at Tweedie and Prideaux. He was an authority on dance in the Napoleonic and Victorian eras. He wrote numerous books including Napoleon III in England, The Romantic Ballet in England, The Ballet of the Enlightenment, Ballet Under Napoleon, The Romantic Ballet in Paris, and The Ballet of the Second Empire. He wrote several biographies including Fanny Cerrito, Fanny Elssler, The Divine Virginia: The Biography of Virginia Zucchi, and Jules Perrot. His memoir, Adventures of a Ballet Historian: An Unfinished Memoir, was published in 1981. He contributed to the creation of Frederick Ashton's La Fille Mal Gardée. He received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France in 2000. He died on March 30, 2018 at the age of 97.
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