A Robin Wood Bibliography

obin wood: A Brief Biography.

obin Wood was born (as Robert Paul Wood) on 23 February, 1931, in London England, to Robert Wood, an artist, and Florence Wood, né Earthy. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge, where he was influenced by F. R. Leavis and A. P. Rossiter, and graduated in 1953 with a diploma in education. From 1954 to 1958, Wood taught in schools in both England and Sweden (it is no coincidence that one of Wood's first books was on Ingmar Bergman, or that the first critical study of Wood is in Swedish). After a year in Lille, France, teaching English, Wood returned to teaching English at schools in England, and again in Sweden. On May 17th, 1960, Wood married Aline Macdonald. They bore three children, Carin, Fiona, and Simon. Though he went to Cambridge, and the editorial staff of Movie were Oxford, Wood began to contribute to the magazine in 1962, mostly on the strength of an essay he did on for Cahiers du cinema. In 1965, he published his first book, Hitchcock's Films, at the invitation of A. Zwemmer publishers in London. From 1969 to 1972, under the aegis of Peter Harcourt, Wood was a lecturer in film at Queen's Univrsity, Kingston, Ontario. In September, 1974, Wood and his wife divorced. Around this time, he also had a relationship with John Anderson, the dedicatee in at least one of Wood's books. Later he was to meet Richard Lippe, with whom he has been living since 1977.

Wood came out as a gay man, almost in passing, in a famous Film Comment essay in 1977. From 1973 to 1977, Wood was a lecturer on film studies at the University of Warwick, Coventry, where he met the future film scholar Andrew Britton, whose influence on Wood, by his own account, was as great as Wood's on his student. Wood became professor of film study at York University, Toronto, Ontario in 1977, until his retirement in the early-1990s.

One of the most prolific film writers since the 1960s, Wood publishes at least one book or significant essay every year. Wood has (unintentionally) inspired his own cult of worshipers, not unlike those followers of his own mentor, Leavis. Only Raymond Durgnat and Andrew Sarris have an equal status for film students of a certain generation. In 1985 Wood formed a collective with several other students and colleagues, set up to publish CineACTION!. As of this writing the magazine continues to come out about three times a year. In recent years he has been a (underused) resource on DVD retrospective making ofs. In 1989, Wood spent his sabbatical year in San Francisco, where he formed a life-affirming if temporary relationship with a man named Yuichi, which also inspired him to take an early retirement. Wood's early retirement was also designed to free him to write novels, of which, according to clues on dust jackets and elsewhere, he has written at least four thus far, none yet published.

[11 November, 2006] Recently, Robin Wood himself has provided an account of his life and career to interviewer Armen Svadjian in Your Flesh His interview also features a photograph of Wood, bearing an uncanny resemblance to F.R. Leavis, at the age of 75.

Special Note: This bibliography is unauthorized. It is unaffiliated with Robin Wood, his associates, or any of his magazine publications.

agazines (and websites) with contributions by Robin Wood.

ewspapers with contributions by Robin Wood.

etters by Robin Wood to publications.

ooks by Robin Wood.

ooks and anthologies with contributions by Robin Wood.

n Wood: book reviews, essays, references.

ontents of Wood-Influenced Magazines (Movie, CineACTION!).

hantom Citations: works attributed to Robin Wood currently of uncertain veracity.

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