How It All Began
My Robin Hood collection started almost by accident.
In 1989, while taking a medieval history class at Metropolitan State University, I was struggling to find a topic for my term paper. My professor suggested I take a look at the Robin Hood legend. Once I started digging into the subject, I was hooked.
I quickly discovered that the legend was far more complex than the familiar story of an outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. In fact, that popular description doesn’t accurately reflect Robin Hood’s behavior in the earliest surviving ballads. That discovery sparked a fascination with how the legend developed and changed over the centuries.
At the time, I was also working in a rare bookstore, which gave me access to some fascinating and unusual books. Before long, I began picking up anything related to Robin Hood that crossed my path.
The bookstore also operated an international book search service. Through its contacts and network of book scouts, I was able to track down editions and related works that would otherwise have been difficult to find. This was long before internet searches and online marketplaces made hunting for obscure books as easy as it is today.
What started as research for a term paper gradually became a lifelong hobby.
Even now, whenever we travel somewhere new, one of my favorite activities is visiting local bookstores to see whether they have any Robin Hood books I don’t already own. I even have a longtime book scout friend in Wyoming who continues to keep an eye out for titles missing from my collection.
More than three decades later, the collection continues to grow. It isn’t a comprehensive record of everything published about Robin Hood, nor was that ever the intention. It’s a personal collection built through years of curiosity, discovery, and the enjoyment of finding something unexpected.
What began as a simple term paper has become a lasting appreciation for one of the world’s most enduring legends.