Robert Colls

Robert Colls is Professor Emeritus of History at De Montfort University. He is the author of the acclaimed biographies George Orwell: English Rebel (2013) and George Orwell: Life and Legacy (2026), both published by Oxford University Press.

Robert was educated at the universities of Sussex and York and in 1979 started work at Vaughan College in the Department of Adult Education at Leicester University. He was formerly professor English history there, and professor of history at De Montfort University, also in Leicester.

He is author and editor of a number of books on the north-east region, including The Collier’s Rant (1977), The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield (1987) and Newcastle upon Tyne, a Modern History (2001). His This Sporting Life (2020) won the Aberdare Prize for sports history writing. He writes regularly for the New Statesman and the Literary Review. He has held senior fellowships with Fulbright and Leverhulme, and residential scholarships with St John’s College Oxford, Yale University and the University of Dortmund.