Reader in English Literature
My current research focuses on Mary Shelley, who lived in Ramsgate for 6 months in 1811 while attending Miss Caroline Petman's school for the daughters of dissenters, and later travelled via Dover when she eloped to the Continent with Percy Shelley in 1814. Several other women writers who I have researched also travelled through Dover during the Romantic period, including Mary Wollstonecraft (Mary Shelley's mother), Frances Burney, Mary Robinson, and Dorothy Wordsworth.
I also have research interests in Jane Austen, who visited Kent regularly to see her brother, Edward Austen Knight, who lived first at Rowling House, near Goodnestone, where Austen stayed in 1794 and 1796, and later at the magnificent Godmersham Park, where Austen stayed on six different occasions between 1798 and 1813.
Currently supervising postgraduate research projects on Kent-related topics
I am currently writing a book on Mary Shelley for the Key Popular Women Writers Series (forthcoming 2025).