Tom Mole (FRHistS)
Professor of English Literature and Book History, Director of the Centre for the History of the Book

- English Literature
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 650 4283
- Email: Tom.Mole@ed.ac.uk
- Web: Edinburgh Research Explorer profile
Address
- Street
-
Room 2.04
50 George Square - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9LH
Availability
Office hours 9-10am, Wednesdays
Background
Tom Mole is Professor of English Literature and Book History, and Director of the Centre for the History of the Book. He studied at the University of Bristol and has worked at the University of Glasgow, the University of Bristol and at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. In 2013 he was a fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University. His most recent book, What the Victorians Made of Romanticism (2017), won the Saltire Society Research Book of 2018 and the Dorothy Lee Prize, and was commended for the DeLong Prize.
Research summary
Tom specialises in literature of the Romantic period in Britain, especially the poetry of Lord Byron. He is interested in Book History and Print Culture, the cultural history of celebrity, periodical writing, and reception history.
The Centre for the History of the Book, which Tom directs, was established in 1995 as an international and interdisciplinary centre for advanced research into all aspects of the material culture of the text - its production, circulation, and reception from manuscript to electronic text.
Project activity
Tom is currently writing a book, provisionally entitled The Secret Life of Books, about the things we do to books and the things they do to us.
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[Review of] Karen Swann, Lives of the Dead Poets
In:
Studies in Romanticism, vol. 59, pp. 379-82
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published) -
Romantic Periodicals in the Twenty-First Century: Eleven Case Studies from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine
(288 pages)
Research output: Contribution to Conference › Anthology (Published) -
'A separate and distinct tribunal': Libel Law and reviewing in Early Issues of Blackwood's
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Introduction
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
Catching up with Walking Stewart
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
[Review of] Julia H. Fawcett, Spectacular Disappearances: Celebrity and Privacy, 1696-1801
(2 pages)
In:
The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, vol. 52, pp. 87-89
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/scb.2019.0008
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published) -
The Secret Life of Books: Why They Mean More Than Words
(256 pages)
Research output: Contribution to Other › Book (Published) -
Review of Richard Lansdown, ed., Lord Byron: Selected letters and journals
In:
Romanticism, vol. 25, pp. 209-211
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/rom.2019.0422
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Book/Film/Article review (Published) -
Philip Larkin, L.T.Meade, and the Sweet Girl Graduate
(2 pages)
In:
Notes & Queries, vol. 66, pp. 315-316
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjz044
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Celebrity and anonymity
(14 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199660896.001.0001
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published)