Robert Talbot Kelly

He left school in 1876 to take up work in a firm of cotton traders, but also received an art education from his father, exhibiting under the name R. G. Kelly Jnr.

He left his employment in 1882, travelled by boat to North Africa, and settled in Egypt in 1883, acquiring a studio in Cairo and becoming fluent in Arabic.

Egypt Painted and Described, his first illustrated travel book, was published in 1902 (by A & C Black), and was an account of his impressions and experiences of that country during his long stay there; an exhibition of his Egyptian views was also held at the Fine Art Society in the same year.

Prior to publishing his books on Egypt, Kelly provided illustrations for Von Slatin's Fire and Sword in the Sudan (1896).

He was married and had a son, Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly (1896–1971), MBE MC RI, who was also an artist, specialising in bird painting and historical subjects and an illustrator and who was a Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery in the First World War.