Richard Barber

Richard William Barber FRSL FSA FRHistS (born 1941) is a British historian who has been writing and publishing in the field of medieval history and literature ever since his student days. He has specialised in Arthurian legend, beginning with a general survey, Arthur of Albion (1961) which is still in print in a revised edition. His other major interest is historical biography; he has published on Henry Plantagenet (1964) and among his other books is the standard biography of Edward, the Black Prince, Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine. The interplay between history and literature was the theme of The Knight and Chivalry, for which he won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1971 and he returned to this theme in The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief (2004); this was widely praised in the UK press, and had major reviews in The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is currently working on a group biography of the first knights of the Order of the Garter.

Barber's other career has been as a publisher. In 1969 he helped to found The Boydell Press, which later became Boydell & Brewer Ltd, one of the leading publishers in medieval studies, and was group managing director until 2009. In 1989, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, in association with the University of Rochester, started the University of Rochester Press in upstate New York. The group currently publishes over 200 titles a year.

Select bibliography

• Arthur of Albion: an introduction to the Arthurian literature and Legends of England (Barrie & Rockliff with Pall Mall P, 1961).
• The Knight and Chivalry (London; 1970).
• The Figure of Arthur (London: Longman, 1972).
• King Arthur: in Legend and History (Boydell Press, 1973).
• Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine (London; 1978).
• Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince (1979).
• The Arthurian Legends: An Illustrated Anthology (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1979).
• Legends of Arthur (The Boydell Press; 2001) ISBN 0-85115-837-4
• The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief (London: Allen Lane & Harvard University Press; 2004). ISBN 978-0-674-01390-2
• The Holy Grail, The History of a Legend (Penguin Books Ltd; 2004).
• The Reign of Chivalry (2nd Ed. UK: The Boydell Press; 2005) ISBN 1-84383-182-1

• Edited and introduced by Richard Barber: Myths & legends of the British Isles (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999).

Collaborations

• with Juliet Barker: Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989).

External links

• Works by or about Richard Barber in libraries (WorldCat catalog)