20th Century… “They had never heard of Robin Hood”: Remarks from George Orwell’s “A Clergyman’s Daughter” (1935) 3 Mar 2020 By Stephen Basdeo Robin Hood has on occasion been accused of being a hero who appears mainly in literature for the middle classes. The first ever printed copies of A…
14th Century… Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough and William of Cloudeslie 20 Feb 2020 By Stephen Basdeo Stories of Robin Hood have been popular since at least the late fourteenth century, as we know from William Langland’s Vision of Piers Plowman (c.1377). However, around…
20th Century… “Like a faint echo from the Middle Ages”: George Orwell’s Time among the Tramps 18 Feb 202018 Feb 2020 By Stephen Basdeo It was the roaring 1920s. After the carnage of the Great War (1914–18), it truly seemed as if Britain was changing for the better in some respects.…
15th Century… Joseph Ritson’s Discovery of “Robin Hood and the Monk” (1465) 28 Jan 2020 By Stephen Basdeo While researching my book, Discovering Robin Hood: The Life of Joseph Ritson: Gentleman, Scholar, and Revolutionary, I came across some fascinating information. I give below a snippet…
18th century… The Working Man’s Robin Hood: The Writings of Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) 24 Jan 202024 Jan 2020 By Stephen Basdeo In 1832, the publisher Charles Knight had a bright idea: every Saturday he would publish a new magazine which whose aim was to educate working-class readers about…
19th Century… The Life and Work of Victorian Robin Hood Scholar John Mathew Gutch (1776–1861) 13 Jan 2020 By Stephen Basdeo The modern scholarly study of the Robin Hood legend began with the pioneering work of Joseph Ritson who in 1795 published Robin Hood: A Collection of all…
