Nye, Robert

Robert Nye was born in London, England, on March 15, 1939, into a working class family. A precocious student, he attended Southend High School and had published poems in the London Magazine by the age of sixteen. He left school in 1955 and did not pursue additional formal study. Between 1955 and 1961, he worked at a variety of jobs: newspaper reporter, milkman, laborer in a market garden, and orderly in a sanitarium.

Nye married his first wife, Judith Preyed (derivative spelling: Pratt), in 1959. In 1961, they moved to a remote cottage in North Wales where Nye devoted himself full-time to writing. There he developed an interest in the Welsh and Celtic legends reflected later in his fiction and children's literature. His first literary success, Juvenilia I (1961), was a collection of short poems. A second volume, Juvenilia II (1963), won the Eric Gregory Award. To supplement his writing income in the early 1960s, Nye began to review poetry for British literary journals and newspapers. He became the poetry editor for The Scotsman in 1967, and was named poetry critic of The Times in 1971, while also contributing reviews to The Guardian.

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