Robert J. H. Morrison

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Robert J. H. Morrison (born 6 January 1961) is a Canadian author, editor, and academic. He is British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University and Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. A scholar of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and culture, he is particularly interested in the Regency years (1811–1820), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , Jane Austen, and Thomas De Quincey.

Contents

Early life

Morrison was born and raised in Lethbridge, Alberta. He was educated at the University of Lethbridge, where he gained a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1983. He later pursued a Master of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, which he completed in 1987. In 1991, Morrison earned his PhD at the University of Edinburgh. [1]

Academic career

Morrison is British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University [2] and Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. [3] He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2017. [4] He received the University of Lethbridge Distinguished Alumnus of the Year award in 2013. He has been the recipient of a number of teaching awards, including the Frank Knox Award for Excellence in Teaching (2006, 2008, 2014), the W. J. Barnes Award for Excellence in Teaching (2006, 2018), and the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance Teaching Award (2008). Morrison maintains the Thomas De Quincey Homepage, a site devoted to the study of the life and writings of its namesake. [5]

Writer

Morrison’s most recent book, The Regency Years, During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern was published in North America by W. W. Norton. [6] [7] Under the title The Regency Revolution: Jane Austen, Napoleon, Lord Byron, and the Making of the Modern World, it was published in Britain by Atlantic. [8] The Regency Years was longlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize, and named by The Economist as one of its 2019 Books of the Year.  As The Regency Revolution, it was also longlisted for the Elma Dangerfield Prize and shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Crown Award for the best in historical non-fiction.

Morrison’s 2009 biography of Thomas De Quincey—The English Opium-Eater—was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in Biography. [9] He is the co-general editor of The Selected Works of Leigh Hunt, and editor of Hunt’s essays, 1822–38 (Pickering and Chatto, 2003). He is the editor of three volumes of the Works of Thomas De Quincey , and co-editor of a fourth (Pickering and Chatto, 2000–03). With Daniel Sanjiv Roberts, he edited Romanticism and Blackwood's Magazine: "An Unprecedented Phenomenon" (2013) and Thomas De Quincey: New Theoretical and Critical Directions (2008). For Oxford University Press, he edited Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings (2013), and Thomas De Quincey's On Murder (Oxford, 2006), and co-edited (with Chris Baldick) The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre (1997), and Tales of Terror from Blackwood's Magazine (1995). He produced Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: A Sourcebook for Routledge (2005), and he edited Richard Woodhouse's Cause Book: The Opium-Eater, the Magazine Wars and the London Literary Scene in 1821 [10] as a complete issue of the Harvard Library Bulletin (1998).

Personal life

Morrison is married to Carole Beaudin. They have two children. [11]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regency era</span> Early 19th century era in the United Kingdom

The Regency era of British history is commonly applied to the years between c. 1795 and 1837, although the official regency for which it is named only spanned the years 1811 to 1820. King George III first suffered debilitating illness in the late 1780s, and relapsed into his final mental illness in 1810; by the Regency Act 1811, his eldest son George, Prince of Wales, was appointed prince regent to discharge royal functions. When George III died in 1820, the Prince Regent succeeded him as George IV. In terms of periodisation, the longer timespan is roughly the final third of the Georgian era (1714–1837), encompassing the last 25 years or so of George III's reign, including the official Regency, and the complete reigns of both George IV and his brother William IV. It ends with the accession of Queen Victoria in June 1837 and is followed by the Victorian era (1837–1901).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas De Quincey</span> English essayist, translator and political economist (1785–1859)

Thomas Penson De Quincey was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work De Quincey inaugurated the tradition of addiction literature in the West.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1822.

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<i>Confessions of an English Opium-Eater</i> Account of Thomas De Quniceys opium addiction

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"On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts" is an essay by Thomas De Quincey first published in 1827 in Blackwood's Magazine. The essay is a fictional, satirical account of an address made to a gentleman's club concerning the aesthetic appreciation of murder. It focuses particularly on a series of murders allegedly committed in 1811 by John Williams in the neighborhood of Ratcliffe Highway, London. The essay was enthusiastically received and led to numerous sequels, including "A Second Paper on Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts" in 1839 and a "Postscript" in 1854. These essays have exerted a strong influence on subsequent literary representations of crime and were lauded by such critics as G. K. Chesterton, Wyndham Lewis and George Orwell.

The English Mail-Coach is an essay by the English author Thomas De Quincey. A "three-part masterpiece" and "one of his most magnificent works," it first appeared in 1849 in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, in the October and December issues.

Suspiria de profundis is a collection of essays in the form of prose poems by English writer Thomas De Quincey, first published in 1845. An examination of the process of memory as influenced by hallucinogenic drug use, Suspiria has been described as one of the best-known and most distinctive literary works of its era.

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The Noctes Ambrosianae, a series of 71 imaginary colloquies, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine from 1822 to 1835. The earlier ones had several different authors, including John Gibson Lockhart, William Maginn, James Hogg and Professor John Wilson, but from 1825, with the 19th in the series, the contributions by Wilson predominate, and he eventually wrote all or most of 39 of the dialogues, as well as parts of some others. The scene is usually set in Ambrose's Tavern in Edinburgh, and the central characters are "Christopher North", "Timothy Tickler", and the "Ettrick Shepherd". Several other characters, imaginary or based on real people, including the "English Opium Eater" and "The tailor o' Yarrow Ford" occur in some episodes. The series is particularly noted for the expressive Scots dialogue of the Ettrick Shepherd.

Opium and Romanticism are well-connected subjects, as readers of Romantic poetry often come into contact with literary criticisms about the influence of opium on its works. The idea that opium has had a direct effect on works of romantic poetry is still under debate; however, the literary criticism that has emerged throughout the years suggests very compelling ideas about opium and its impact on Romantic texts. Usually these criticisms tend to focus on poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and George Crabbe.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas De Quincey bibliography</span>

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References

  1. "Dr. Robert Morrison." Lethbridge: University of Lethbridge Alumni, 2013.
  2. Professor Robert Morrison. "For the duration of his Global Professorship Robert Morrison is hosted by Bath Spa University".
  3. Ross, Alec "Transforming Solo Scholarship into Dynamic Teaching.." Kingston: Queen's University Research, 2014.
  4. "Welcome to The Royal Society of Canada | The Royal Society of Canada". rsc-src.ca. Retrieved 2018-05-29.
  5. Morrison, Robert. Thomas De Quincey Homepage.
  6. "Home | W. W. Norton & Company". books.wwnorton.com. Retrieved 2018-05-29.
  7. "Prince charmless: Sex, drugs and the birth of modernity". No. May 25, 2019, page 81 (reviewed as "superb"). The Economist, print and website (with subscription or registration). May 23, 2019. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  8. "Home – Atlantic Books". Atlantic Books. Retrieved 2018-05-29.
  9. Mechefske, Lindy. "The Passion of a Poet." Kingston: Queen's University Alumni Review, 2010.
  10. Kitson, Peter (2000-08-02). The Year's Work in English Studies Volume 78: 1997. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 530. ISBN   978-0-631-21931-6.
  11. Morrison, Robert. "Biography" robertjhmorrison.com.