Robert Edric is a pseudonym for Gary Edric Armitage, an award winning British novelist born in Sheffield in 1956.
 

Now based in Yorkshire, Edric has written over 20 novels. A Season of Peace (1985) and Across the Autumn Grass (1986) were written under the name of G. E. Armitage. Winter Garden (1985) was Edric's first published novel and winner of the James Tait Black Award. Two of his novels have been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize: Peacetime (2002) and Gathering the Water (2006).

In 2005 Edric completed a trilogy of detective novels set in Hull: Cradle Song, Siren Song and Swan Song.

The archive contains 53 boxes of pencil manuscripts, typescripts and proofs of short story writing, novels, novellas, and screenplays from 1982-2005. Edric writes in pencil, he doesn't use a computer and has no delete 'option'. The creative writing process, scribbles and revisions, workings and re-workings have consequently been meticulously preserved in these paper manuscripts.

The archive includes manuscripts of Edric's five early unpublished novels. These novels formed the foundation of his writing career in a period when he says he "was learning to work hard".

The short stories are a fascinating tangle. Many have non-existent titles. Some metamorphosed into later stories; some found their way into the later novels. There are bits and pieces, finished and half-finished tales contained within the first 7 boxes.

Edric's latest novel London Satyr was published in 2011.

The Devil's Beat will be published by Doubleday in March 2012.

Listing of this collection (PDF, 598KB)