page_title: Denys Finch Hatton
section_title: Relationship with Blixen
hierarchical_section_title: Denys Finch Hatton / Africa / Relationship with Blixen
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Ungdomsfotografi av Karen Dinesen (Karen Blixen). Fotograf Sophus Juncker-Jensen 1913. The text in danish, "Taget lige inden min afrejse til Afrika", means "Taken shortly before my departure for Africa".
context_page_description: Denys George Finch Hatton was an English aristocratic big-game hunter and the lover of Baroness Karen Blixen, a Danish noblewoman who wrote about him in her autobiographical book Out of Africa, first published in 1937. In the book, his name is hyphenated: "Finch-Hatton".
context_section_description: Finch Hatton was not known to have had any serious romances before he met Baroness Blixen. They were introduced at the Muthaiga Club on 5 April 1918. Soon afterwards he was assigned to military service in Egypt. On his return to Kenya after the Armistice, he developed a close friendship with Blixen and her Swedish husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke. He left Africa again in 1920 but returned in 1922, investing in a land development company.
  By this time, Karen Blixen had separated from her husband, and after their divorce in 1925, Finch Hatton moved into her house and began leading safaris for wealthy sportsmen. Among his clients were Marshall Field Jr and Edward, Prince of Wales. According to a highly sympathetic biography of Beryl Markham by author Mary S. Lovell, in 1930 Finch Hatton succumbed to a love affair with Markham, who was working as a race-horse trainer in Nairobi and the surrounding area. Markham had had a series of lovers, both single and married, and she had apparently had an attraction to Finch Hatton for years, but not acted on while Blixen, who gave Markham shelter and support over the years, was most deeply involved with Finch Hatton. During this period, however, he was also still seeing Blixen. Later, she became known as a pioneer flyer herself (Markham attributed her interest in flying to her association with Tom Campbell Black).
caption: Karen Blixen in 1913
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