Robin Marsden’s Legacy to Quadrant

“Big Sister” Robin Marsden (1936–2021), who sadly succumbed to faculties-withering Parkinson’s disease in August after a long struggle, was a poetic spirit. She fastened onto an image from the American poet Robert Frost, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—, I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.” In 2003, looking back on her earlier creative life, Robin mused, “I think I found the road ‘less travelled by’ or it found me.” It was serendipity that her road and the road that Quadrant was on intersected at a moment of mutual benefit and opportunity.

Robin offered Quadrant a rich background of English (plus German and French) literary studies, embracing all eras and genres, passionately enhanced over twenty years of meticulous, motivational scholarship and teaching. She had extensive critical experience, honed to the level of an instinctive perfectionist. To this she added inspirational drive and energy, an ability to persuade…