Few academics nowadays would choose to begin their publishing career with two introductory volumes for beginners. Yet Geoffrey Lewis did just that, with Teach Yourself Turkish (1953) and Turkey (1955), his account of the history and politics of the modern republic. He was dealing with what was essentially a new language and a new country. Both books dominated their field for at least the next twenty years and helped establish Lewis as the leading British Turkologist for the next five decades. Not only was he ‘a pioneer in Turkish Studies in Britain’, recognised particularly in Turkey and in the US for his deep learning, his genuine commitment and his clear-sighted affability; he was also an unusually outgoing advocate for his subject outside academia, welcoming opportunities to promote the study of Turkish language and culture, and to facilitate British-Turkish relations. He was an active and well-informed intermediary who won admiration on both sides, from individuals and governments alike. A string of academic and other honorary awards came his way, culminating in an Award of Merit from the Turkish government and royal appointment as a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, both in 1998.

Born in London in 1920, Lewis originally studied classics at university but, like several of his contemporaries in Middle Eastern studies, fell into his definitive Oriental subject partly as a result of military service during the Second World War. In 1939 he was a potentially rather bored Oxford undergraduate whose Latin tutor at St John's College suggested that he take up the study of Turkish as a hobby to engage his intellect. An elementary grammar by A. C. Mowle, bought from Blackwells in Oxford, was his introduction to the language. Stationed for much of the war in Egypt and Libya as a radar operator in the RAF, Lewis continued to take this hobby seriously, expanding his knowledge through the parallel study of Turkish translations of English literary works, versions in both languages being found and sent out to him by his wife after trawling through London bookshops.