Robert Gittings

Robert William Victor Gittings CBE (1 February 1911 – 18 February 1992), was an English writer, biographer, BBC Radio producer, playwright and poet. In 1978, he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Older Hardy.

Early life Born at Southsea, the son of Surgeon-Captain Fred Claude Bromley Gittings and his wife Dora Mary, née Brayshaw, the young Gittings was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford, where he was taught by George Mallaby, and Jesus College, Cambridge, where he arrived in 1930 with a scholarship, gaining a First in 1933. He later wrote the article on George Mallaby in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

While still at school he published poems and thus encountered Christopher Fry, a lifelong friend. At the University of Cambridge, he was encouraged by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor of the Oxford Book of English Verse, whose rooms in college were near his, and in 1931 he was awarded the Chancellor's gold medal for English verse. History and poetry combined in him into the ability to bring the past to life. In all, he published twelve volumes of poetry. Conflict at Canterbury (1970) American Journey: Twenty-five sonnets (1972) The Young Thomas Hardy (1975) The Older Hardy (1978) (with Jo Manton) The Second Mrs Hardy (1979) (with Jo Manton) Dorothy Wordsworth (Clarendon Press, 1985, ) People, Places, Personal (1985) Claire Clairmont and the Shelleys (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, )