Peter Robinson Collection

MS 5761

c.1943-c.2022

Peter Robinson was born in February 1953, in Salford, Lancashire, the first son of a curate in the Church of England and a geography teacher who had left her job to be the wife of a priest. Peter grew up in his father's parishes, urban areas of Greater Manchester, Wigan, and Liverpool. In September 1971, Peter went to York to study an English Literature degree that included a compulsory foreign literature element, gaining a first-class degree in English and Related Literature in June 1974. Peter was writing poetry from the age of fifteen with his first printed verses appearing in sixth-form publications. As an undergraduate, Peter published poems in the student magazines, and a couple of pamphlets of juvenilia shared with another student poet, Hugh Macpherson (1953-2001), and his girlfriend, and later first wife, Rosemary Laxton. After leaving York, the events of 1975, and in particular the sexual assault which Peter witnessed at gunpoint in September, were to form the material for some of the poems in his publication 'This Other Life' and to provide the plot outline for his novel, 'September in the Rain'. In the autumn of 1975, Peter began work on a doctorate in modern poetry at Cambridge and became involved with the poetry scene in the university and town. Peter co-edited the seven issues of the magazine 'Perfect Bound' between 1976 and 1979. At the same time Peter joined the Cambridge Poetry Festival Society. Peter’s doctorate was awarded in 1981 for a thesis on the poetry of Donald Davie, Roy Fisher, and Charles Tomlinson. During the 1980s, Peter held temporary lectureships at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and Trinity College, Cambridge. During this period he co-edited the magazine 'Numbers' with John Alexander, Alison Rimmer, and Clive Wilmer. In 1988, Maura Dooley invited Peter to act as advisor for the first of a new series of Poetry International festivals at the South Bank Centre in London. In the summer of 1988, Peter was offered a visiting lectureship at Kyoto University, Japan, for two years. While there, he was recruited for the post of visiting professor at Tohoku University. While in Japan, Peter discovered that he had a benign brain tumour. He returned to England to have the operation in May 1993. Peter was able to return to Japan in mid-September 1993 accompanied by Ornella Trevisan, whom he had first met in Cambridge in 1984. Ornella helped with the long convalescence that brain surgery entails, and they were married in February 1995 at the Italian Embassy in Tokyo. Family life was split between Sendai and Kyoto in Japan, Parma, Italy, and England until Spring 2007, when Peter was offered a chair in the School of English and American Literature at the University of Reading. Since returning to Reading, as well as founding the creative writing degree programmes and leading research at the university on poetry and poetics, Peter organised a centenary conference on the work of the poet Bernard Spencer (1909–1963), instigated the publication of an annual creative arts anthology, and helped found the Reading Poetry Festival. Peter is poetry editor for Two Rivers Press and The Fortnightly Review as well as literary executor for the estates of the poets Roy Fisher (1930–2017) and Mairi MacInnes (1925–2017).

This collection contains material relating to all aspects of Peter Robinson's working life. Notebooks; working drafts and copies of his work in poetry; prose; translation; criticism and in the role of editor and the supporting financial, business and legal papers of a published author. Other papers show his academic interests and teaching, while personal and family papers give insight into some of the inspiration for his writing. The large series of correspondence evidences Robinson's publishing life and network of family, colleagues and friends. CONTENT WARNING: please be aware that the Peter Robinson archive contains material which some people may consider challenging, including material examining the experience of sexual assault.

c 65 boxes

fonds

Peter John Edgley Robinson, Roy Fisher, 1930-2017, Mairi MacInnes, 1925-2017

The Collection has been arranged in 16 series: 1 Poetry 2 Prose 3 Works of Translation 4 Criticism 5 Reviews 6 Correspondence 7 Diaries 8 Editorial Works 9 Teaching and Research Papers 10 Reader's Reports 11 Legal Papers 12 Financial Papers 13 Business Papers 14 Marketing Material 15 Personal and Family Papers 16 Photographic Material This catalogue has been enhanced with further description, contextual and dating notes by Anna Saroldi, working with Peter Robinson, following the award of a BA / Leverhulme Small Research Grant between March and June 2024. These notes can be found within square brackets at the end of the file description.