W. Sydney Robinson (born April 16, 1986) is a British biographer and book reviewer. He was educated at Harrow School, the University of Manchester and the University of Cambridge, where he was a research associate between 2013 and 2015.
Biographer
He is best known as the authorized biographer of Academy Award-winning screenplay writer and dramatist Sir Ronald Harwood. The book Speak Well of Me: the authorized biography of Ronald Harwood was published by Oberon Books in May 2017 and charts Harwood's life from his impoverished childhood as part of a large Jewish family in South Africa to his years of success in the West End and Hollywood. Reviewing the book in The Times of London, theatre critic Benedict Nightingale described it as 'engaging' and 'entertaining'. The reviewer in the Jewish Chronicle, however, described it as 'wincingly florid' and 'egregious'.
Published works
Robinson has also published biographies of the Victorian investigative journalist W. T. Stead, Muckraker: the scandalous life and times of Britain's first investigative journalist, and a group biography of Sir William Joynson-Hicks, Dean Inge, Lord Reith and Sir Arthur Bryant, The Last Victorians: a daring reassessment of four twentieth century eccentrics. Muckraker was awarded the Political Biography of the Year Award at the 2013 Total Politics and Paddy Power Political Book Awards and was included in the 'Books of 2012' selection in The Sunday Times. In a review of The Last Victorians in The Spectator, biographer and historian Philip Ziegler commented that 'Robinson has real talent'. In 2021, Robinson followed up his earlier work on Sir Arthur Bryant with a work of literary non-fiction based on the extensive correspondence of the historian with a number of his former secretaries and lovers. This book, entitled Historic Affairs: the Muses of Sir Arthur Bryant, contained revelations about Bryant's private life that were described as 'jaw-dropping' in a review by Adam Sisman in 'The Spectator'.
Robinson has reviewed books in The Sunday Times, the TLS, the Spectator and the Literary Review.
Life
He lives in Northamptonshire and teaches full-time at Oundle.
References
- Nightingale, Benedict (3 June 2017). "Review: Speak Well of Me: The Authorised Biography of Ronald Harwood by W. Sydney Robinson". The Times. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
- Jacobs, Gerald (12 June 2017). "Sir Ronald Harwood: A Knight at the Theatre". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
- Ziegler, Philip (26 July 2014). "Daring? No. Well written? Yes." The Spectator. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
- Sisman, Adam (22 May, 2021). "Arthur Bryant: Monstrous Chronicler of Merrie England." Retrieved 19 August 2024.
- "Blue Book 2019 2020 - Oundle School". Oundle School. p. 9. Retrieved 30 October 2024.