Biography
I read English at Pembroke College, Oxford, where I also took a BLitt. I then taught at Keele from 1972 to 2009, specializing in eighteenth-century literature and the novels and poetry of the 1930s. In 1997 I was Fellow of the Centre for the Book at the British Library and in 2009 A. Bartlett Giamatti Fellow at the Beinecke Library, Yale.
Research and scholarship
My chief research interests are in Pope, Swift, Johnson, and the theory of textual criticism. I serve as a general editor of the Cambridge edition of the works of Jonathan Swift (seventeen volumes) and was one of the founding editors of the Oxford edition of Alexander Pope (twenty-three volumes). I have been studying the illustrations of Pope's Works, and, as one of the four editors assigned to the first two volumes of the edition (poems to 1717), will take responsibility for Pope's imitations and translations.
Selected Publications
- 2019.
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'Th'Extended Dream': Pope's Play with Sexual and Textual Instabilities, 1705-1737. Modern Language Review. full text>
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Poems in Print. In The Oxford Handbook of British Poetry, 1660-1800. Oxford University Press.2016.
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George Faulkner and Swift's Collected Works. In Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book. Cambridge University Press. doi>2013.
Full Publications Listshow
Books
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Pope, Print and Meaning. Oxford University Press.2001.
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A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson: 1731-1759. Oxford University Press on Demand.2000.
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A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson: 1760-1816. Oxford University Press on Demand.2000.
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Pope and the early eighteenth-century book trade. Oxford University Press, USA.1991.
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Pope's printer, John Wright a preliminary study. Oxford University Press.1976.
Journal Articles
- 2019.
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'Th'Extended Dream': Pope's Play with Sexual and Textual Instabilities, 1705-1737. Modern Language Review. full text>
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The Revision of the First Edition of Gulliver's Travels: Book-Trade Context, Interleaving, Two Cancels, and a Failure to Catch. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 5-35, vol. 106(1).2012.
- 2002.
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David Foxon, Humanist Bibliographer. Studies in bibliography, 81-113, vol. 54.2001.
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Of Which Being Publick the Publick Judge: Pope and the Publication of Verses Address'd to the Imitator of Horace. Studies in bibliography, vol. 51.1998.
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Pope in the Private and Public Spheres: Annotations in the Second Earl of Oxford's Volume of Folio Poems, 1731-1736. Studies in bibliography, vol. 48.1995.
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Naming and Blaming: The Poetics of Mock Epic. Review.1994.
- 1993.
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Facsimiles and the Bibliographer: Pope's Dunciad. Review, vol. 15.1993.
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POPE TEXT, LIFE AFTER TWICKENHAM. SCRIBLERIAN AND THE KIT-CATS, 1-3, vol. 21(1). link>1988.
- 1986.
- 1985.
- 1984.
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The Mode of Existence of Literary Works of Art: The Case of the "Dunciad Variorum". Studies in bibliography, 82-105, vol. 37.1984.
- 1981.
- 1981.
- 1980.
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The first printing and publication of Pope's letters. The Library.1980.
Chapters
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Poems in Print. In The Oxford Handbook of British Poetry, 1660-1800. Oxford University Press.2016.
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George Faulkner and Swift's Collected Works. In Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book. Cambridge University Press. doi>2013.
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Fixity and Instability in the Text of Johnson’s Poems. In Samuel Johnson: The Arc of the Pendulum. Johnston F and Mugglestone L (Eds.). Oxford University Press.2012.
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Swift and the Art of Political Publication: Hints and Title Pages, 1711-1714. In Politics and Literature in the Age of Swift. Rawson C (Ed.). Cambridge Univ Pr.2010.
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The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift and the Future of the Scholarly Edition. In Text editing, print and the digital world. Deegan M and Sutherland K (Eds.). Ashgate Pub Co.2009.
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Naming and Shaming in the Poetry of Swift, 1726-1745. In Swift's travels. Hudson N and Santesso A (Eds.). Cambridge Univ Pr.2008.
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The Failure of the Swift-Pope Miscellanies (1727-1732) and The Life and Genuine Characte of Doctor Swift (1733). In Reading Swift: Papers from the Fifth Munster Symposium on Jonathan Swift. Munchen: Wilhelm Fink.2008.
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Pope and the Book Trade. In Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope. Rogers P (Ed.). Cambridge University Press.2007.
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For Who So Fond as Youthful Bards of Fame? Pope's Works of 1717. In The Culture of Collected Editions. Nash A (Ed.). Palgrave.2003.
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Reading David Fleeman's Bibliography of Samuel Johnson. In The Age of Johnson. by PJK and Author JL (Eds.). (vol. 13). Ams Press.2002.
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Questions of Entitlement: Some Eighteenth-Century Title Pages. In The Margins of the Text. University of Michigan Press.1997.
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Issues of Identity and Utterance: An Intentionalist Response to 'Textual Instability'. In Devils and Angels: Textual Editing and Literary Theory. University of Virginia Press.1991.
Other
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The Collected Verse of John, Lord Hervey.
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The Collected Verse of John, Lord Hervey.