[1] His major publication was The Origins of European Thought: About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate (Cambridge UP, 1951).
He served in the 4th South Lancs and the RAF in 1917–1918,[1] and then gained a first class degree in classics at Liverpool University.
[1][2] Onians' doctoral research explored concepts in Homer and was awarded the Hare Prize in 1926, a condition being that the work should be published by 1929.
He negotiated an extension to this time limit, and although a 1935 draft with the title Origins of Greek & Roman Thought, mainly concerning the body, the mind, the soul and fate is held by the British Library,[3] his book, though circulating in manuscript, was not published until 1951, as The Origins of European Thought: About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate (Cambridge University Press).
[2] Jules Brody wrote in 2014: "His prodigious learning and intellectual daring put Onians squarely in a class with Damaso Alonso, Ernst-Robert Curtius, Mario Praz, and Leo Spitzer.