William Wallace Robson

He was born in Plymouth on 20 June 1923 the son of Kathleen Ryan and her husband, William Robson, a barrister. He was educated at Leeds Modern School.

He studied literature at the University of Oxford, graduating with a BA. In 1946 he began lecturing in English literature, and in 1948 was elected a Fellow and gained an MA. In the early 1950s he founded the Oxford journal Essays in Criticism with F. W. Bateson.

Robson gave the 1957 Chatterton Lecture on Poetry.[1][2] In 1970 he received a chair in English at the University of Sussex, and in 1972 moved to a similar position at the University of Edinburgh.

In 1988 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Norman Jeffares, Donald Low, Archie Turnbull, and John McIntyre.[3]

He retired in 1990 and died in Edinburgh on 31 July 1993.[4]

In 1962 he married Anne-Varna Moses, and together they had two sons.

• Critical Essays (1966)
• The Signs Among Us (1968) – poetry
• Modern English Literature (1970)
• The Definition of Literature (1982)
• A Prologue to English Literature (1986)
• Critical Enquiries (1993)
• The Oxford History of English Literature 1890–1950 (1993)
• The Oxford Book of Edwardian Verse (1993)