Academic publications

This lists some of my academic publications, including those on research undertaken in the archives for my long-term project about the women of the Yellow Book
I was a Research Fellow at the Institute of English, School of Advanced Study, University of London from 2006 to 2024.  The Institute is based at Senate House in Bloomsbury  
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society 1997
MA Victorian Studies, University of London, Birkbeck College, University of London 1982
BA English, University of Sussex, 1976
As well as support from the IES, I have received grants for my Decadent Women work from the British Academy, the Scouloudi Foundation and the Authors' Society
Academic Publications 
Netta Syrett: A Yellow Book Survivor English Literature in Transition vol. 62 no 2 2019 pp.206-243

‘Slimy trails and holy places’ Dowson’s strange life in context in ‘Betwixt the Bounds of Life and Death': Selected Essays on Ernest Dowson Peter Lang 2019

The 1890s Woman in Edinburgh Companion to Fin-de-siecle Literature, Culture and the Arts Edinburgh University Press 2018 pp. 283-300

Olive Custance: A Poet Crossing Boundaries English Literature in Transition vol. 61 no 1 2018 pp. 35-65

Menie Muriel Dowie: The 'Modern' Woman of Choices English Literature in Transition vol. 58 no 3 2015 pp. 313-40

Feminist Solidarity in the Life and Work of Ella Hepworth Dixon The Latchkey vol 5 summer 2013 http://www.thelatchkey.org/Latchkey5/essay/Adams.htm

The Drowning of Hubert Crackanthorpe and the Persecution of Leila Macdonald English Literature in Transition vol. 52 no 1 2009 pp.6-34

Gabriela Cunninghame Graham: Deception and Achievement in the 1890s English Literature in Transition vol.50 no 3 2007 pp.251-268

William and Edna Clarke Hall: Private and Public Childhood “Your Child For Ever” English Literature in Transition vol. 49 no 4 2006 pp.398-417 

Kipling's Dilemma: Decadent or Hearty? The Kipling Journal vol 82 no 325 2008 pp.9-27 https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/2686/

How the Great Mendoza put Judaism and Courage Together The Cable issue 7 2008 pp.10-15

Several Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entries including ones on Ethel Colburn Mayne and Coulson Kernahan and a group entry on 'The Rhymers'
Recent Conference Papers
Looking North: 1890s Women and Scandinavia Women Writing Decadence University of Oxford 7 July 2018

The Race Fault-Line in Pioneer Women’s Suffrage Nations Race, Female Suffrage and Parliamentary Representation in the Global South  House of Commons 9 February 2018

 ‘Slimy trains and holy places: Dowson’s strange life in context  Ernest Dowson: Poet, Translator, Novelist Goldsmiths’ College 15 April 2016 

International Perspectives on Women’s Suffrage Gender, Politics and Agency Winchester University 27 September 2016 (

‘I will say “yes sir” to my husband’ Women’s Suffrage in the Newly Independent Nations of the British Empire European Social Sciences History Conference Valencia 30 March 2016.

Gandhi in London Fin de siècle Echoes Kings College, London 12 December 2015

‘Yesternight’ the Alexandrine and Memory in Dowson’s Cynara Poem Decadence and the Senses Goldsmiths College, University of London 10 April 2014

‘The wonderful Mission of Earl Lavender’: Money as the Measure of Evolutionary Success Victorian Popular Fiction Association conference Institute of English, Univesity of London 11 July 2012

Kipling – A Post-decadent Imperialist? Rudyard Kipling: An International Writer Institute of English, University of London 21 October 2011

Absinthism, Role Reversal and the Death of the Race in Nineteenth Century France Damaging the Body Wellcome Institute, London 24 September 2010

Ménie Muriel Dowie the ‘modern’ woman of choices Women Writers of the Fin-de-Siècle Institute of English Studies University of London 28 June 2010

Feminist solidarity and eugenics in the life and work of Ménie Muriel Dowie and Ella Hepworth Dixon Victorian Popular Novelists conference Institute of English Studies, University of London 11 September 2009
Academic Reviews
I have reviewed a good deal for mainstream publications.  That will be covered on the 'Journalism' page.  This page relates to reviews in academic journals.

Decadence: A Very Short Introduction (David Weir) The Wildean no 53 July 2018 pp 70-2

Decadence: A Literary Anthology (ed. Jon Crabb) The Wildean no 52 January 2018 pp 103-5

Meeting Without Knowing It: Kipling and Yeats at the Fin de Siécle (Alexander Bubb) Yeats Annual no 21, 2018

The Porter’s Daughter: The Life of Amy Audrey Locke (Winifred Dawson) Essays in Honour of Eammon Cantwell Yeats Annual no 20, 2016 pp 445-9

John Evelyn Barlas, A Critical Biography: Poetry, Anarchism and Mental Illness in Late-Victorian Britain (Philip Cohen) in the academic online review forum Review 19 Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, 2104 http://www.review19.org/view_doc.php?index=284

'Let our fame be great' Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus Political Quarterly vol 83 no 1 2012               pp 180-2

Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape Political Quarterly vol 80 no 1 2009 pp 149-51  

Essays on Decadence English Literature in Transition vol 51 no 2 2008 pp 225-228 

Citizen Moore: An American Patriot?  Political Quarterly vol 79 no 1 2008 pp 133-136 

Love and Dirt: The Marriage of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullick Women's Writing vol 11 no 2 2004 pp 324-328





Reflections of Anti-Semitism in Victorian Society 1840-1875


The work I did for my MA at Birkbeck College, University of London has never been published so I am making it available here.  Reflections of Anti-Semitism in Victorian Society 1840-75 covers British newspaper coverage of 'ritual  murder' allegations in Turkey in 1840; the campaign for the removal of Jewish civil disabiities from 1847 to 1858 and the elevation of Benjamin Disraeli. 


It also covers images of Jewishness in literature including some notable works such as Trollope's The Way We Live Now and Eliot's Daniel Deronda.