Bio graphy;

Arnold was born at Gravesend, Kent, the second son of a Sussex magistrate, Robert Coles Arnold. One of his six children was the novelist Edwin Lester Arnold. He was educated at King's School, Rochester; King's College London; and University College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize for poetry in 1852. He became a schoolmaster, at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and in 1856 went to India as principal of the Government Sanskrit College at Poona, a post which he held for seven years, which includes a period during the mutiny of 1857, when he was able to render services for which he was publicly thanked by Lord Elphinstone in the Bombay council. Here he received the bias towards, and gathered material for, his future works. Returning to England in 1861 he worked as a journalist on the staff of the Daily Telegraph, a newspaper with which he continued to be associated as editor for more than forty years, and later became its editor-in-chief.[2] It was he who, on behalf of the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph in conjunction with the New York Herald, arranged the journey of H.M. Stanley to Africa to discover the course of the Congo River, and Stanley named after him a mountain to the northeast of Albert Edward Nyanza. Arnold must also be credited with the first idea of a great trunk line traversing the entire African continent, for in 1874 he first employed the phrase "Cape to Cairo railway" subsequently popularized by Cecil Rhodes. It was, however, as a poet that he was best known to his contemporaries. The literary task which he set before him was the interpretation in English verse of the life and philosophy of the East. His chief work with this object is The Light of Asia which was translated into various languages such as Hindi (tr. by Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla). It appeared in 1879 and was an immediate success, going through numerous editions in England and America, though its permanent place in literature is quite uncertain. It is an Indian epic, dealing with the life and teaching of the Buddha. The poem was subjected to two lines of criticism: it was held by Oriental scholars to give a false impression of Buddhist doctrine; while, on the other, the suggested analogy between Sakyamuni and Jesus offended the taste of some devout Christians.[citation needed] The latter criticism probably suggested to Arnold the idea of attempting a second narrative poem of which the central figure should be Jesus, the founder of Christianity, as the founder of Buddhism had been that of the first. But though The Light of the World (1891), in which this took shape, had considerable poetic merit, it lacked the novelty of theme and setting which had given the earlier poem much of its attractiveness; and it failed to repeat the success gained by The Light of Asia. Arnold's other principal volumes of poetry were Indian Song of Songs (1875), Pearls of the Faith (1883), The Song Celestial (1885), With Sadi in the Garden (1888), Tiphar's Wife (1892) and Adzuma or, The Japanese Wife (1893). Sir Edwin was married three times[3]. His first wife was Katherine Elizabeth Biddulph of London who died in 1864. Next he married Jennie Channing of Boston who died in 1889. In his later years Arnold resided for some time in Japan, and his third wife, Tama Kurokawa, was Japanese. In Seas and Lands (1891) and Japonica (1892) he gives an interesting study of Japanese life. He received the CSI on the occasion of the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India in

1877, and in 1888 was created CIE He also possessed decorations conferred by the rulers of Japan, Persia, Turkey and Siam. He was a founder member, together with Anagarika Dharmapala, of the Mahabodhi Society of India.

Legacy
Arnold's Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation is considered important to 20th century science fiction literature, in that it may have inspired the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom series, which was written six years later. Indeed, both Gullivar and Burroughs's character John Carter, first seen in A Princess of Mars (1917), are Southern United States soldiers who arrive on Mars and have numerous adventures, including falling in love with a Martian princess. The character of Carter, however, has more in common with Arnold's earlier creation, Phra. Critics would say that Arnold's Martian adventure was not as well written, and the fact that Gullivar doesn't quite defeat his enemies or get the girl in the end helps explain why his novel not as popular as Burroughs's, which was followed up by ten sequels. Ace Books reprinted Arnold's Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation in 1964, retitling it Gulliver of Mars [sic]. A more recent Bison Books edition was issued as Gullivar of Mars, adapting the Ace title to Arnold's spelling. Marvel Comics did a brief comic version of Gullivar of Mars during the early 1970s, possibly as a reaction to DC gaining the rights to publish Burroughs' John Carter during this time. With art by Gil Kane, it ran in several issues of Creatures on the Loose. Marvel's Gullivar was a Viet Nam vet, and the series started in modern times. Though the series used many of Arnold's characters and concepts, the series was not a strict adaptation of the original book. Both Gullivar and John Carter make an appearance at the beginning of volume two in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book series.