Robert J Kirkpatrick is a researcher and writer on boys' fiction.
He was born in Stourbridge, on 2 November 1953 and attended grammar school in Lichfield, Staffordshire. He worked as a benefit officer for the Notting Hill Housing Trust from 1990, and wrote some best practice guides for Housing Associations.
Kirkpatrick has written extensively on boy's fiction and is the Secretary of the Children's Books History Society, the British branch of the Friends of the Osborne and Lillian H. Smith Collections of children's books at the Toronto Public Library. He has written several short monographs for the society.
One recent work, Henty Goes to School: School Life in the Novels of G.A. Henty Kirkpatrick introduced the topic in the context of Henty's own schooling and then interposed passages about school life from Henty's books with commentary. G. A. Henty never wrote a full book set in a school setting.
Kirkpatrick's most recent work has concentrated on illustrations and he has produced two books on illustrations. He has contributed a whole series of thorough and detailed biographies of illustrators of children's books on the Bear Alley blog.
Works
Publications by Robert J. Kirkpatrick (BL refers to British Library)No Year Title Other Author/s Pages Publisher ISBN BL Source of data, if other than BL1 1990 Bullies, Beaks and Flannelled Fools: An Annotated Bibliography of Boys' School Fiction, 1742–1990 120 Author, London 0951637304 2 1999 Housing Benefit: A Good Practice Guide for Housing Associations National Housing Federation, London Encyclopedia.com3 1999 Housing Benefit Overpayments: A Good Practice Guide National Housing Federation, London Encyclopedia.com4 2000 The Encyclopedia of Boys' School Stories Rosemary Auchmuty, Joy Wotton 385 Ashgate, Aldershot 9780754600831 5 2001 Bullies, Beaks and Flannelled Fools: An Annotated Bibliography of Boys' School Fiction, 1742–2000, 2nd ed. 337 Author, London 0951637312 6 2001 Victorian Boys' School Stories in Books and Periodicals: A Bibliography Michael Rupert Taylor 107 Author, London 7 2002 A Guide to Housing Benefit Overpayments Notting Hill Housing Trust, London Encyclopedia.com8 2006 Before Tom Brown: The Birth and Development of the Boys' School Story 16 Children's Books History Society, London 9 2010 The Three Lives of Bernard Heldmann 32 Children's Books History Society, London 10 2013 From the Penny Dreadful to the Ha'penny Dreadfuller: A Bibliographic History of the Boys' Periodical in Britain 1762–1950 528 The British Library, London 9780712309547 11 2013 Wild Boys in the Dock: Victorian Juvenile Literature and Juvenile Crime 33 Children's Books History Society, London 12 2016 Pennies, Profits and Poverty: A Biographical Directory of Wealth and Want in Bohemian Fleet Street 550 Hanwell, London 9781518690990 13 2016 Henty Goes to School: School Life in the Novels of G.A. Henty, edited with an introduction by Robert J. Kirkpatrick G. A. Henty 264 CreateSpace (Amazon self-publishing) 9781530447312 14 2017 Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby and the Yorkshire schools, Fact v Fiction 375 Mosaic, Middleton-in-Teesdale 9780993597053 15 2019 Picturing Tom Brown: How Artists Have Illustrated "Tom Brown's Schooldays" 90 Author, London 9781072137566 Bear Alley16 2019 The Men Who Drew for Boys (and Girls): 101 Forgotten Illustrators of Children's Books 1844–1970 559 Author, London 9781796820980 Bear Alley172020The Lost Diaries of Nigel MolesworthGeoffrey Willans69Author, London9798602683387Yes182024Before Tom Brown: The Origins of the School Story232Lutterworth Press9780718897376Yes192025Publishers, Profits and Poverty: A Biographical Directory of Publishing in Bohemian Fleet Street459Cambridge Scholars Publishing9781036445935No
References
External links Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books Children's Book History Society Bear Alley Blog