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. Having studied for a joint honours degree in English and French, I am delighted that I was able to continue my studying and scholarship in both disciplines. I am also an expert in the works of Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley in particular, and have published a number of books, chapters and articles around these two authors. I am currently editing works by both of these authors, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe for Cambridge University Press, and the 1831 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for Penguin Classics.
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 2026, with the first volume The Italian (ed. Gamer), to be followed by my edition of The Mysteries of Udolpho. I am Project Lead on the AHRC-funded award Ann Radcliffe Then and Now, which wraps a series of public events around the edition, including a series of public lectures, study days, podcasts and a final summative conference upon Ann Radcliffe. I am delighted to be working upon this award with my Co Leads Professor Dale Townshend (Manchester Metropolitan University), Dr Katrina O’Loughlin (Brunel University), Dr Deborah Russell (University of York), and Professor Michael Gamer. We are also very grateful to have an AHRC-funded Research Associate Dr Rosie Whitcombe working alongside us on the project and the edition. This AHRC standard grant was also preceded by a one-year award from the Modern Humanities Research Association for the edition.
Secondly, with Professor Dale Townshend, I am also series editor for the highly successful series Cambridge Elements in the Gothic. We have now published fifteen titles in the series, and are very excited about other proposals coming through.
Last but not least, my Leverhulme-funded book Fostering Romanticism, which has been a real labour of love, is just about finished and ready for submission. It examines the persistent representation, and significance, of the foster parent in Gothic and Romantic literature between 1750 and 1830.
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) (with Dale Townshend), Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic (Cambridge University Press, 2014) (with Dale Townshend), and Volumes One and Two of the three-volume The Cambridge History of the Gothic (2020) (with Dale Townshend and Catherine Spooner) which was joint recipient of the Justin D Edwards prize for best edited collection on the Gothic in 2024. This was a major project with chapters across the three volumes by more than sixty 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. View this article in WRRO
- 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.
Book chapters
- Gothic Circulations, Cambridge History of European Romantic Literature (pp. 162-187).
- 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 (pp. 1-21). Cambridge University Press
- Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis, The Cambridge History of the Gothic (pp. 304-322). 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, The Cambridge History of the Gothic (pp. 19-40). Cambridge University Press
- Gothic Metamorphoses across the Centuries In Ascari M, Baiesi S & Levente Palatinus D (Ed.) Peter Lang CH
- Gothic and nineteenth-century poetry: Thresholds of influence, possibilities and desire, Edinburgh Companion to Gothic and the Arts (pp. 271-285).
- Spain in Gothic Fiction In Saglia D & Haywood I (Ed.), Spain in British Romanticism: 1800-1840 Basingstoke: Palgrave.
- 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).
- The Female Gothic, CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO FRANKENSTEIN (pp. 101-115).
- 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 and Romantic engagements The critical reception of Ann Radcliffe, 1789–1850, Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic (pp. 3-32). Cambridge University Press
- Gothic Translation France, 1760–1830, The Gothic World (pp. 221-230). Routledge
- Disturbing the Female Gothic: An Excavation of the Northanger Novels In Smith A & Wallace D (Ed.), The Female Gothic: New Directions (pp. 60-75).
- SCOTTISH GOTHIC, ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO GOTHIC (pp. 73-82).
- 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
- Gothic Shakespeares In Drakakis J & Townshend D (Ed.) Routledge
Conference proceedings
- Le Gothic
- 'How do we ape thee, France!' The Cult of Rousseau in Women's Gothic Writing in the 1790s. LE GOTHIC: INFLUENCES AND APPROPRIATIONS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA (pp 67-82)
- 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 or co-supervised thirteen 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; the interrelationships between Gothic fiction and travelogues during the eighteenth century, early Gothic novels, masculinity and the military; early children’s Gothic literature; Scandinavian Gothic; manifestations of Gothic fear in Romantic poetry; The Jewish Other: Christian Constructions and Literary Representations (1790-1830); John Keats and the Gothic Imagination; and the Gothic historiography during the Romantic period.
At present, I supervise the following PhD students:
Samiha Begum, working upon Landscape and the Sublime in early women’s Gothic writing.Sophie Haywood, working upon Ann Radcliffe.
Ellesse Patterson, working upon ‘‘‘A Misbegotten Race”: Monstrous Reproduction in the Long Nineteenth-Century Gothic’.
- Grants
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2024-7: Project Lead on the AHRC Award: ‘Ann Radcliffe, Then and Now’: £567,246
2022-3: MHRA Research Associate Award for the Cambridge Edition of the Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe: £25000
2016: Leverhulme Standard Grant for Fostering Romanticism: £57000
2011: British Academy Small Research Award for ‘Mary Shelley’ : £1800
- 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 teach and lecture upon core modules on Renaissance to Revolution and Romanticism to Modernism.
I also offer an MA module entitled 'Romantic Gothic'.
- Professional activities and memberships
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External examining: I served as external examiner for the University of Stirling´s MLitt in `The Gothic Imagination´ (2005-9), the University of Glamorgan´s BA in English programmes (2008-2012), the University of Kent’s MA programmes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (2016-20); Manchester Metropolitan’s MA programmes and the University of Southampton’s BA and MA programmes in eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature.
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; the University of Southampton; Leeds Becket University; the University of Melbourne; the University of Liverpool and De Montfort University.
Learned Society Roles
2013-2017: Co-president of the International Gothic Association.
2010-2013: Treasurer and membership secretary of the British Association of Romantic Studies (BARS)
Editorial and advisory boards
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.