English Literature

The work of researching and writing my Dracula’s Magic (completed 1983) brought me into contact with the famous gothic novels of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, Frankenstein and Dracula. At this same moment, when I was invited to edit Frankenstein by Penguin, I also began postgraduate work in English literature at Essex University with David Musselwhite. My decision to embark on a Ph.D  producing a critical edition of William Godwin’s 1794 novel Caleb Williams meant turning myself into a Romanticism scholar. I am still often known for the Penguin Classic editions of  Frankenstein,  Dracula (just released as the Spanish Penguin edition) and, because of my Godwin research, the Penguin Classic edition of Caleb Williams. By 1993-94, taking my interest in the history of science more seriously, I produced for the Penguin Critical Studies series, the book-length Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Now long out of print, I aim to update, rewrite and republish that Study in due course.

Romanticism research also led me into the poetry and science of Romantic scientist Humphry Davy. I have published essays on Davy’s poetry, ‘Nature, Power, and the Light of Suns’ and ‘Humphry Davy and William Wordsworth: A Mutual Influence’ (soon to be added to this site). I am proud to have reintroduced the world to the poetry of Humphry Davy, usually noted only for his contributions to chemistry, science and for the ‘Davy miner’s lamp’ in the early nineteenth century. Finally, I should mention that having taught the English Eighteenth Century novel at MA level for the Open University for many years, I was asked to edit for a new scholarly edition of his novels Daniel Defoe’s Col. Jacque (Pickering, 2009 [1723]).