From 1922 to 1925 he read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge; it was during this period of his life he acquired the name Michael (after Mikhail Lomonosov).
[3] According to Philip Spratt, who was one of only a handful of fellow communists attending Cambridge at this time, Roberts was suspected by the Marxist academic Maurice Dobb of being a fascist spy.
Having published his first poetry collection in 1930, he began to edit anthologies, of which New Country (1933) was celebrated for the group of poets (including W. H. Auden) that it featured.
[1] The next year, he married Janet Adam Smith, critic, anthologist, and fellow mountaineer; they lived in Fern Avenue, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne.
[5][failed verification] The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English states that Roberts' The Faber Book of Modern Verse was "directly instrumental in forming the tastes of succeeding generations of readers.
W. H. Auden, Richard Goodman, C. Day-Lewis, John Lehmann, Charles Madge, Michael Roberts, Stephen Spender, A. S. J. Tessimond, Rex Warner.