Tod Robbins- The Life of the Reclusive Master of the Bizarre

By Osie Turner

Tod Robbins is best known for his short story "Spurs," which was later adapted into the infamous movie "Freaks!" However, next to nothing is known about the author's life. This book is the first biography on this independently wealthy, athlete, concentration camp survivor, and unsung visionary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Osie Turner
• Release date: Apr 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301385508

Osie Turner

Writer, Blogger, Eccentric.

Book preview

Introduction

Clarence Tod Robbins is best known for his short tales of the bizarre. However, his talent was not confined solely to human oddities and deranged criminals. Far from it! His work is quite broad in its scope, containing everything from Absinthe-drinking babies (The Bibulous Baby, 1919), to the soul-devouring nature of Manhattan (The Spirit of the Town, 1912). In the novel In the Shadow (1929) which is a collection of interconnected short stories centering on the death of the family matriarch, Robbins depicts the personalities of two women, Madame Delatour and Louise, so believably that he was referred to as Miss Robbins in a literary review of the book.

Since his untimely death in 1949, Tod Robbins has been all but forgotten and his work largely ignored by the literary community.

I first discovered Tod Robbins, as I imagine most of his current fans have, after viewing the infamous film, Freaks! (1932). After reading the short story that it was adapted from (Spurs, 1923), I was hooked and went on to read anything I could find of Robbins’. That was when I realized the scarcity of his work; only a small portion of his writing was still in print and only Spurs was to be found as a dedicated ebook.

I also found that there was hardly anything known about Robbins’ life. He endeavored to keep his personal life a complete secret--oftentimes all too successfully. Besides his ridiculously