Born and brought up in Scotland, I have never quite felt at home in the horizontal landscape of the Fens. Nevertheless I have lived and worked in Cambridge for over 50 years, first as a student, then a teaching Fellow for the College, and a lecturer, eventually Professor, in the Faculty of English. Though I did my PhD on late nineteenth-century fiction, my University lectureship was tied to the course on Tragedy compulsory for all final year undergraduates in English, so I have taught and written on Tragedy from the Greeks to the present day. I take a particular interest in the ‘afterlives’ of Shakespeare, an enthusiasm related to my love of theatre and performance. In recent years, especially since so-called retirement, I have concentrated my research on scholarly editions of Henry James and Evelyn Waugh. Returning full-circle to the field of my PhD research, I am currently working on a book about Robert Louis Stevenson.

I have also undertaken many administrative roles including, for the College, two terms as undergraduate Admissions Tutor, Fellow for Communications, and now Tutor, and for the University, Chair of the Faculty of English and Chair of the School of Arts and Humanities.

As noted above, my research and writing have ranged across tragedy from the Greeks to the present, but in recent years they have been focussed primarily on late nineteenth and twentieth century authors, in particular scholarly and critical editions of Henry James for Cambridge University Press and Evelyn Waugh for Oxford University Press.

I am currently researching a book on Robert Louis Stevenson: A Life in Ten Letters, for Cambridge University Press.