Eighteenth-century and Romantic Studies

We have a broad range of research and teaching specialisms in this area:

Dr Jessica Malay’s main interest in this area is Early Modern women’s writing. Her work with Anne Clifford and the early part of the ‘long eighteenth century’ includes editions of Anne Clifford’s Great Books of Record, and Anne Clifford’s Autobiographies along with a number of journal articles exploring Anne Clifford’s relationship with her culture and society.  She has taught a number of Restoration playwrights and the writing of women from the later 1600s to the mid-eighteenth century including Aphra Behn, Katherine Phillips, Anne Finch and others.  She is presently working on a biography of Anne Clifford and exploring ideas of autobiography as they developed in this period.

Dr Todd Borlik has an interest in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century adaptations of and criticism on Shakespeare and in the eco-poetics of the Romantic era.

Dr Michael Stewart’s novel, Ill Will (HarperCollins), incorporates research related to Emily Brontë’s eighteenth-century and Romantic contexts. In the summer of 1780 Heathcliff overhears Cathy say it will degrade her to marry him. He runs off in a storm and is not seen again for three years. When he leaves he is an uncouth stable boy. When he returns he is a gentleman psychopath.  Ill Will is the novel which tells the story of what happened during his time away. It shines a light on the political and cultural turmoil taking place: the enclosures act, child exploitation, the industrial revolution and the slave trade. In order to research the book, Michael Stewart accessed many historical sources, including the public records of Liverpool City Library, Liverpool Maritime Museum and Chetham's Library. He also walked hundreds of miles over meadow and moor.