Robert Henry Forster: The Writer

Whilst a student, Forster contributed to his college magazine, The Eagle, and some of these pieces were later collected in his The Amateur Antiquary. His first novel, The Hand of the Spoiler, was published in 1898 and a whole series of Northumbrian tales followed, at a rate of about one a year. He also penned a number of volumes of poetry, the last of which - A Devonshire Garden - appeared posthumously. Despite their evident popularity in his day (and some favourable reviews), Forster's books are now hard to come by: fame is a transient thing. An etext of The Amateur Antiquary will be added to this site in the near future.

Miscellaneous

• The Amateur Antiquary: His Notes, Sketches, and Fancies Concerning the Roman Wall in the Counties of Northumberland and Cumberland, pp.208. Mawson Swan & Morgan: Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Gay & Bird: London, 1899
• The Postgraduates, a Suggestion for a Comic Opera. pp. 16. Cambridge, 1895
• Down by the River. A Rowing Man's Miscellany.. pp. 113. E. Johnson: Cambridge, 1901

with W. Harris

• The History of the Lady Margaret Boat Club, St. John's College, Cambridge, 1825-1890. pp. 187. Deighton, Bell, & Co.: Cambridge, 1890

Historical Novels

• The Hand of the Spoiler: Being the Adventures of Master Wilfrid Clavering, at Corbridge, Hexham, and Elsewhere, in the Twenty-Seventh, Twenty-Eighth, and Twenty-Ninth Years of His Late Highness King Henry the Eighth, pp. 273. Mawson Swan & Morgan: Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Gay & Bird: London, 1898
• A Tynedale Comedy, pp. 337. Mawson Swan & Morgan: Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Gay & Bird: London, 1902
• The Last Foray, pp. 320. John Long: London, 1903
• In Steel and Leather, pp. 314. John Long: London, 1904
• Strained allegiance, pp. 316. John Long: London, 1905
• The Arrow of the North, pp. 316. John Long: London, 1906
• The Mistress of Aydon, pp. 314. John Long: London, 1907
• A Jacobite Admiral, pp. 316. John Long: London, 1908
• Harry of Athol, pp. 315. John Long: London, 1909
• Midsummer Morn, pp. 320. John Long: London, 1911
• The Little Maister, pp. 319. John Long: London, 1913

Poetry

• Idylls of the North, pp. 119. John Long: London, 1903
• In Old Northumbria, With eight illustrations by R. C. Reid, pp. 121. John Long: London, 1905
• War Poems of a Northumbrian, 1st series 1914, 2nd series 1915
• The Double Realm, pp. 151. Erskine Macdonald: London, 1920
• Two Romances in Verse, pp. 150. Jonathan Cape: London, 1922
• A Devonshire Garden: sonnets written there in 1922, pp. 71. Jonathan Cape: London, 1923