About me.

Here’s some info about me, current as of October 2025.

If you’re needing a bio of me in preparation for an event (or whatever), feel free to assemble something (as brief as you like) from the details below. I’ve included a short version, should you prefer to cut to the chase.
Also below are a couple of photos for promotional use. Please credit: Photo by Penny Ryan. For further information, contact Mrs Bradley.

Robyn Annear is author of ten books of history –
Bearbrass: Imagining Early Melbourne – winner of a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award in 1995 and still in print (Black Inc)
Nothing But Gold: The diggers of 1852 (Text, 1999)
The Man Who Lost Himself: The unbelievable story of the Tichborne Claimant (Text, 2002)
Fly a Rebel Flag: The Eureka Stockade – for younger readers (Black Dog Books, 2004)
A City Lost & Found: Whelan the Wrecker’s Melbourne (Black Inc, 2005)
Nothing New: A history of second-hand (Text, 2019)
Adrift in Melbourne: Seven Walks with Robyn Annear (Text, 2021)
Corners of Melbourne: The great orange-peel panic & other stories from the streets (Text, 2023)
Spring Street Things (Parliament of Victoria, 2025)
Shutter City: Fragments of a forgotten Melbourne (Melbourne University Press, 2025)

As a curator, Robyn has explored aspects of Melbourne’s history in exhibitions at the City Gallery, Melbourne Town Hall – most recently (2024) Gotcha: concrete prints from the McEwans celebrity pavement. She writes (very) occasionally for The Monthly.

On TV, Robyn has appeared in Victoria Wood’s BBC series, Victoria’s Empire (Episode 3), in Tony Robinson Explores Australia (Episode 4: Eureka), and in The Crown and Us. She also featured in Gus Berger’s acclaimed 2022 documentary, The Lost City of Melbourne.

In 2018, Robyn launched a podcast, Nothing on TV, which ransacks Trove Newspapers, the National Library of Australia’s digital repository of historical newsprint, for stories from a time when there was, literally, nothing on TV.

Short version –

Robyn Annear is author of ten books of history, including Bearbrass, A City Lost & Found: Whelan the Wrecker’s Melbourne, Nothing New, Adrift in Melbourne and, most recently, Shutter City: Fragments of a forgotten Melbourne. She appeared in the acclaimed 2022 documentary, The Lost City of Melbourne. In her podcast, Nothing on TV, Robyn presents stories from Trove historical newspapers.

Please credit: Photo by Penny Ryan.