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Search - List of Books by Robert Nye

Robert Nye (born 1939) is an English poet who has also written novels as well as stories for children.

Robert Nye was born in London on 15 March 1939. His father was a civil servant, his mother a farmer's daughter. He attended Southend High School for Boys and had published poems in the London Magazine by the age of sixteen. He left school in 1955 and did not pursue additional formal study.

He was a conscientious objector during National Service in the late 1950s, and was given exemption from military service conditional upon joining the Friends Ambulance Unit and serving as a medical orderly at St Wulstan's Sanitorium, near Malvern, and then at Rochford General Hospital in Essex.

Between 1955 and 1961, he worked at a variety of jobs: newspaper reporter, milkman, postman, labourer in a market garden, and orderly in a sanitorium.

Nye married his first wife, Judith Pratt, in 1959. In 1961, they moved to a remote cottage in North Wales where Nye devoted himself full-time to writing. There he developed an interest in Welsh and Celtic legends reflected later in his fiction for both adults and children. His first book, Juvenilia 1 (1961), was a collection of poems. A second volume, Juvenilia 2 (1963), won the Eric Gregory Award. To support his continuance as a poet, Nye began to contribute reviews to British literary journals and newspapers. He became the poetry editor for The Scotsman in 1967, and served as poetry critic of The Times from 1971 to 1996, while also contributing regular reviews of new fiction to The Guardian.

Nye started writing stories for children to entertain his three young sons. His children's novel Taliesin and a collection of stories called March Has Horse's Ears were published by Faber and Faber in 1966. Nye published his first adult novel, Doubtfire, in 1967. That same year he divorced his first wife, then in 1968 married Aileen Campbell. The two moved to Edinburgh where they lived until 1977.

Nye's next publication after Doubtfire was a return to children's literature, a freewheeling version of Beowulf which has remained in print in many editions since 1968. In 1970, he published another children's book, Wishing Gold, and received the James Kennaway Memorial Award for his collection of short stories, Tales I Told My Mother (1969).

During the early 1970s Nye wrote several plays for BBC radio including A Bloody Stupit Hole (1970), Reynolds, Reynolds(1971), and a version of Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist (1971). He was also commissioned by Covent Garden Opera House to write an unpublished libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, Kronia (1970). Nye held the position of writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh, 1976—1977, during which time he received the Guardian fiction prize, followed by the 1976 Hawthornden Prize for his novel Falstaff.

1978 saw the publication of his Merlin excursion into the Matter of Britain, equally convincing as romance or poetry or drug-induced hallucination.

He has continued to write poetry, publishing Darker Ends (1969) and Divisions on a Ground (1976), and to prepare editions of other poets with whose work he feels an affinity: Sir Walter Ralegh, William Barnes, and Laura Riding. His own Collected Poems appeared in 1995, and remains in print. His selected poems, entitled The Rain and The Glass, published in 2005, won the Cholmondeley Award. He has lived since 1977 in County Cork. Although his novels have won prizes and been translated into many languages, it is as a poet that he would probably prefer to be remembered. The critic Gabriel Josipovici has described him as "one of the most interesting poets writing today, with a voice unlike that of any of his contemporaries."

Selected Works   more

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Robert Nye", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
Total Books: 102
Bee hunter adventures of Beowulf
Bee Hunter Adventures of Beowulf (Other)
ISBN-13: 9780571082520
ISBN-10: 0571082521
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Beowulf
Beowulf (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780099419303
ISBN-10: 0099419300
Genre: Children's Books
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Beowulf  A New Telling
Beowulf a New Telling (Paperback)Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780440905608
ISBN-10: 0440905605
Genres: Children's Books, Literature & Fiction
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
 7

Beowulf A New Telling
Beowulf a New Telling (Other)Paperback, Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780606020343
ISBN-10: 0606020349
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Beowulf the Bee Hunter
Beowulf the Bee Hunter (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780571101566
ISBN-10: 0571101569
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The Bird of the Golden Land
The Bird of the Golden Land (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780241103159
ISBN-10: 0241103150
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Bird of the Golden Land
Bird of the Golden Land [Beaver Books] (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780600204893
ISBN-10: 0600204898
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Classic Folktales from Around the World
Classic Folktales From Around the World (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781858911496
ISBN-10: 1858911494
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Collected Poems
Collected Poems (Hardcover)Paperback
ISBN-13: 9781856195461
ISBN-10: 1856195465
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A Collection of Poems 19551988
A Collection of Poems 19551988 (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780241128435
ISBN-10: 0241128439
Genre: Literature & Fiction
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A Collection of Poems 195588
A Collection of Poems 195588 [Abacus Books] (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780349102511
ISBN-10: 0349102511
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Cricket Three Stories
Cricket Three Stories (Other)
ISBN-13: 9780672515828
ISBN-10: 0672515822
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Crime Madness and Politics in Modern France The Medical Concept of National Decline
Darker Ends
Darker Ends (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780809013487
ISBN-10: 0809013487
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Darker ends Poems
Darker Ends Poems (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780809037551
ISBN-10: 0809037556
Genre: Literature & Fiction
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Divisions on a Ground
Divisions on a Ground (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780856351747
ISBN-10: 0856351741
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Doubtfire
Doubtfire [Calderbooks] (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780714502014
ISBN-10: 0714502014
Genre: Literature & Fiction
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The facts of life and other fictions
The Facts of Life and Other Fictions (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780241110089
ISBN-10: 0241110084
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Falstaff
Falstaff (Paperback)Paperback, Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780140063233
ISBN-10: 0140063234
Genre: Literature & Fiction
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Falstaff A Novel
Falstaff a Novel (Hardcover)Paperback
ISBN-13: 9781559705912
ISBN-10: 1559705914
Genre: Literature & Fiction
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 1

Falstaff A Novel
Falstaff a Novel (Paperback)Paperback, Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9781611457001
ISBN-10: 1611457009
Genre: Literature & Fiction
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Out of This World and Back Again [Collins young fiction] (Other)
Sawney Bean [Playscripts] (Hardcover)Paperback
Two Prayers a Poem [Keepsake poem] (Other)