Professor Angela Wright
School of English
Professor of Romantic Literature
+44 114 222 8488
Full contact details
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I was appointed as a lecturer in Romantic Literature here at Sheffield University in 2002, and became a senior lecturer in 2010, and was promoted to a personal chair in Romantic Literature in 2015.
- Research interests
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My interests lie in literature published between the 1760s and 1820s, and my publications have come broadly from the interactions between the Gothic and Romantic modes during these decades, both in Britain and in France.
I currently work upon three major projects.
Firstly, I am one of two general editors (with Professor Michael Gamer) of the first ever complete edition of the works of Ann Radcliffe with Cambridge University Press. I am also volume editor of The Mysteries of Udolpho in the edition. The eight volumes of the edition will begin to appear in 2024, with the first volumes being The Mysteries of Udolpho (ed. Wright) and The Italian (ed. Gamer). We are grateful to also have an MHRA-funded Research Associate working alongside us on the edition at Sheffield, Dr Rosie Whitcombe.
Secondly, with Professor Dale Townshend, I am also series editor for the forthcoming series Cambridge Elements in the Gothic. The first ever title in this series will be published in 2023, and we have many more exciting books lined up in this series.
Last but not least, I have been working for the past six years upon a major Leverhulme-funded monograph, Fostering Romanticism which I will complete and submit in 2024.
Previous research has similarly focussed upon Romanticism and the Gothic:
In 2013, for example, I published Britain, France and the Gothic: The Import of Terror with Cambridge University Press, and there I investigated the roles played by translation, adaptation and silent plagiarism between the Gothic and Romantic modes in Britain and France. The book was shortlisted for the Allan Lloyd Smith memorial prize for the best book published upon the Gothic in 2015, and won an honourable mention. It has also been reviewed widely in the Times Literary Supplement, the BARS Review and The Year’s Work in English Studies.
In 2018 I published my first single author study, a monograph entitled Mary Shelley. There, I explored the continuing fascination with the aesthetics of terror and horror that pervade the works of Mary Shelley from Frankenstein in 1818 to the later novels and short stories that she published in the 1810s, 1820s and even 30s. The book has chapters upon Frankenstein, Matilda, Valperga, The Last Man, and a selection of her short stories, and will, I hope, encourage readers to take up some of her amazing, elegiac works beyond Frankenstein. Reviews have appeared in Art Quarterly, Women’s Writing, Keats-Shelley Journal and Romanticism. Following the publication of the book, I gave a number of invited talks at the Royal Institution, Chawton House in Hampshire, the York Literature Festival as well as radio interviews as far afield as Scotland and Australia.
Other publications include the co-edited Romantic Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic (Cambridge University Press, 2014) (both with Dale Townshend). In 2020, I also co-edited with Professor Dale Townshend Volumes I and II of The Cambridge History of the Gothic, a ground-breaking, major editorial project with over 40 essays from a range of international scholars.
- Publications
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Books
- The Cambridge History of the Gothic. Cambridge University Press.
- Mary Shelley. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
- Britain, France and the Gothic, 1764-1820: The Import of Terror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Gothic Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan.
Edited books
- The Cambridge History of the Gothic, Volume 1: Gothic in the Long Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- The Cambridge History of the Gothic, Volume 2: Gothic in the Long Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Romantic Gothic An Edinburgh Companion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Ann Radcliffe, romanticism and the Gothic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Journal articles
- The History of the Unfortunate Lady Grange: Gothic Exhumations of a Concealed Scottish Fate. Gothic Studies, 24(1), 31-43.
- Introduction: Gothic Materials of the Eighteenth Century. Gothic Studies, 14(1), 1-6.
- The Fickle Fortunes of Chivalry in Eighteenth-Century Gothic. Gothic Studies, 14(1), 47-47.
- Introduction: Gothic Materials of the Eighteenth Century. Gothic Studies, 14(1), 1-6.
- The Fickle Fortunes of Chivalry in Eighteenth-Century Gothic. Gothic Studies, 14(1), 47-56.
- Introduction. History of European Ideas, 31(2), 131-134.
- ‘To live the life of hopeless recollection’: Mourning and Melancholia in Female Gothic, 1780-1800. Gothic Studies, 6(1), 19-29.
- Inspiration, toleration and relocation.
Chapters
- The Cambridge History of European Romantic Literature In Vincent P (Ed.) Cambridge University Press
- Gothic Circulations In Vincent P (Ed.), The Cambridge History of European Romantic Literature (pp. 162-187). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Introduction: The gothic in/and history, The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 1, Gothic in the Long Eighteenth Century (pp. 1-21).
- Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis In Wright A & Townshend D (Ed.), The Cambridge History of the Gothic, Volume 1: Gothic in the Long Eighteenth Century (pp. 304-322). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ‘The house of misery’: Space and Memory in the Later Correspondence and Literature of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley In Callaghan M & Howe A (Ed.), Romanticism and the Letter (pp. 253-267). Palgrave
- “Gothic Romanticism and the Summer of 1816.” In Wright A & Townshend D (Ed.), The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 2: Gothic in the Nineteenth Century (pp. 19-40). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ‘The house of misery’: Space and Memory in the Later Correspondence and Literature of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Romanticism and the Letter (pp. 253-267). Springer International Publishing
- Gothic Metamorphoses across the Centuries Peter Lang CH
- Spain in Gothic Fiction In Saglia D & Haywood I (Ed.), Spain in British Romanticism: 1800-1840 Basingstoke: Palgrave.
- Spain in British Romanticism Springer International Publishing
- Haunted Britain In Carter M, Lindfield Ott P & Townshend D (Ed.), Writing Britain's Ruins London: British Library Publishing.
- European disruptions of the idealized woman: Matthew Lewis's The Monk and the Marquis de Sade's La Nouvelle Justine, European Gothic (pp. 39-54).
- 'The Heroine in Flight' In Horner A & Zlosnik S (Ed.), Women and the Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Heroines in flight: Narrating invisibility and maturityi women's gothic writing of theromantic period, Women and the Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (pp. 15-30).
- Gothic and romantic: An historical overview, Romantic Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (pp. 9-44).
- The Gothic, The Cambridge Companion to Women's Writing in the Romantic Period (pp. 58-72). Cambridge University Press
- Gothic, 1764-1820 In Townshend D (Ed.), Terror and Wonder The Gothic Imagination (pp. 68-91). London: The British Library.
- Gothic translation: France, 1760-1830, The Gothic World (pp. 221-230).
- Disturbing the Female Gothic: An Excavation of the Northanger Novels In Smith A & Wallace D (Ed.), The Female Gothic: New Directions (pp. 60-75).
- Gothic and Romantic engagements The critical reception of Ann Radcliffe, 1789–1850, Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic (pp. 3-32). Cambridge University Press
- Gothic Shakespeares Routledge
- Inspiration, toleration and relocation in Ann Radcliffe’s A journey made in the summer of 1794, through Holland and the western frontier of Germany’ In Bode C & Labbe J (Ed.), Romantic Localities
Conference proceedings papers
- The Cambridge History of the Gothic. Cambridge University Press.
- Research group
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I am a member of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Literature Research Cluster, and a founding director of the Centre for the History of the Gothic.
I would be happy to receive any enquiries on working with me, and my intersections between the Gothic, the eighteenth century and the Romantic period. To date, I have successfully supervised PhD theses upon Mary Elizabeth Braddon and serial publication; Sensation fiction medical literature the European supernatural, the Gothic novel and the national tale, the role and function of servants in Gothic fiction, and upon the interrelationships between Gothic fiction and travelogues during the eighteenth century, and early Gothic novels, masculinity and the military.
At present, I supervise the following PhD students:
Carly Stevenson, working upon death in Gothic poetry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century (co-supervision with Andy Smith)Elli Karampela: working upon the manifestations of Gothic fear in Romantic poetry (funded by a University of Sheffield faculty scholarship)
Evangeline Payne: working upon Scandinavian Gothic in relation to the British Gothic tradition.
Melanie Bonsey: Working upon narratology and historiography in Romantic Gothic Writing.
- Teaching activities
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My teaching is closely tied to my research interests. I teach and lecture on eighteenth-century, Romantic and Victorian literature, and have an ongoing interest in theories of gender and nationalism. I offer two approved modules at undergraduate level. 'European Gothic' examines the development of the Gothic genre in Europe from the eighteenth century to the present day; and 'Crime and Transgression in Romantic literature' explores the different resonances of these terms across Romantic poetry, fiction, drama, legal essays and reviews.
I also offer an MA module entitled 'Romantic Gothic' and convene a brand new module on Foundlings, Fostering and Adoption during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I also teach upon the following modules:
- Lit 207 - Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature.
- Lit 3101 - Romantic and Victorian Prose
- Lit 217 - European Gothic.
- Lit 3023 - Crime and Transgression in Romantic Literature.
- Lit 6007 -Romantic Gothic
- Foundlings, Fostering and Adoption in literature, 1739-1900
- Professional activities and memberships
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External examining: I served as the external examiner for the University of Stirling´s MLitt in `The Gothic Imagination´ (2005-9), and as the external examiner for the University of Glamorgan´s BA in English programmes (2008-2012), and the University of Kent’s MA programmes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (2016-20).
I have acted as external examiner for doctoral theses at the following institutions: Cardiff University; National Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Stirling University, the University of York and the University of Southampton.
2013-2017: Co-president of the International Gothic Association.
2010-2013: Treasurer and membership secretary of the British Association of Romantic Studies (BARS)
Membership of advisory boards: Gothic Studies; Studies in Gothic Fiction and the University of Wales Press's Gothic Literary Studies series.
Series editor for Cambridge Elements in the Gothic.
I have also acted as a reader for Cambridge University Press, Manchester University Press, Edinburgh University Press, Oxford University Press and the University of Wales Press.
I am currently one of four judges on the BARS (British Association of Romantic Studies) first book prize panel.