Barnard, Robert

Robert Barnard was an English crime writer and scholar of international fame. He was born in Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex. In 1956, he went up to Oxford to read literature, possibly encouraged by his father who wrote unremarkable romances and young adult books. After graduating in 1959, Barnard taught at university in Australia 1961–1966. He married Louise Tabor there in 1963. They were making plans for moving to England when Barnard got a job as a lecturer at the University of Bergen in Norway where he remained until 1976. He took his doctorate degree there in 1972 and was Professor of English at the University of Tromsø between 1976 and 1984 when he and his wife finally moved to the UK.