H. D. F. Kitto (1897-1982) was a renowned British scholar of classical literature. The son of a school headmaster, he was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire. He studied classics at St. John's College, Cambridge. He received his doctorate in 1920 from the University of Bristol and began teaching the classics at the University of Glasgow, until he was appointed professor of Greek at Bristol in 1944, where he became emeritus professor in 1962. He focused his studies on Greek tragedy, especially translations of the works of Sophocles. He was Professor of the Sather Chair at the University of California in 1960-1961 and of the Ziskind Chair at Brandeis University in Boston in 1962.After his retirement, he went to teach the College Year in Athens, a program for foreign students in the city of Athens.
His first book, In the Mountains of Greece (1933), describes his travels to Greece with only a few incidental references to antiquity. His general treatise The Greeks (1952, published in Spanish in 1962) covered all of ancient Greek culture and became a must-see reference textbook, constantly reprinted and translated into Spanish, French, German, Danish, Dutch, Modern Greek, Japanese, and Korean. His work also stands out
Form and Meamng in Drama (1956), Sophocles, Dramatist and Philosopher (1958) y Poiesis: Structure and Thought (1966).