Education and positions held
A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1st class, in English Language and Literature: Richard F. Littledale Prize), where he edited Icarus, he was supervised for his doctorate at St Peter's College, Oxford by Richard Ellmann. He was for two years a Lecturer in English and Liberal Studies, Oxford College of Further Education, before teaching at the University of Exeter, 1973–74.
A member of staff at the University of Sheffield since 1975, he was made Reader in 1988 and promoted to a Personal Chair in 1994. He was Visiting Lecturer, Peking University, Beijing, China, 1984; Guest Lecturer at the 50th Anniversary Conference of "Xinan Lienda" (National Southwest Associated University), Kunming, China, 1988.
He was a British Academy Research Reader, 1989–91; Leverhulme Research Fellow, 1995–96.
He has been a Fellow of the Yaddo Foundation, 1975; Visiting Fellow Commoner, Trinity College, Cambridge, 1995–96; Visiting Scholar, St John's College, Oxford, 1997; Visiting Fellow, Magdalen College, Oxford 1998.
He is a Member of the Society of Authors; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; Fellow of the English Association; and Fellow of the British Academy.
Since 2009 he is Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London; Principal Investigator of the T.S.Eliot Editorial Research Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, 2009–14; General Editor of the Letters of T.S.Eliot.
Henry's Fate & Other Poems 1967–1972, by John Berryman: edited with an Introduction (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977; London: Faber & Faber, 1978)
John Berryman: A Critical Commentary (London: Macmillan; New York: New York University Press, 1980)
Viewpoints: Poets in Conversation (London: Faber & Faber, 1981)
The Life of John Berryman (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982)
W.H.Auden: The Critical Heritage (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982)
Novelists in Interview (London and New York: Methuen, 1985)
The Royal Beasts and Other Works, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (London: Chatto & Windus, 1987; Iowa University Press, 1988)
Argufying: Essays on Literature and Culture, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (London: Chatto & Windus, 1987; Iowa University Press, 1988). Chosen by Sir Isaiah Berlin as one of the books of the year 1987 in the Sunday Times
Essays on Renaissance Literature, Vol 1: "Donne and the New Philosophy, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
Essays on Renaissance Literature, Vol 2: The Drama, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
The Strengths of Shakespeare's Shrew: Essays, Memoirs and Interviews, by William Empson; edited with an Introduction (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996)
Berryman's Shakespeare; edited with an Introduction (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999; London: Tauris, 2000)
The Complete Poems of William Empson; edited with an Introduction (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 2000; Tallahassee, Florida: University of Florida Press, 2000). Chosen by Sir Frank Kermode as one of the 'International Books of the Year', Times Literary Supplement, 1 December 2000; by David Sexton as 'Book of the Year', Evening Standard (London) December 2000
William Empson: Among the Mandarins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Winner of the American Publishers Association Award for Biography and Autobiography, 2005
William Empson: Against the Christians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
Selected Letters of William Empson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
General Editor:
Letters of T.S. Eliot: Vol 1: 1898–1922 Revised edition. (Faber, 2009)
Letters of T.S. Eliot: Vol 2: 1923–1925 (Faber, 2009)
Editor (with Valerie Eliot):
Letters of T.S. Eliot: Vol 3: 1926–1927 (Faber, 2012)
Letters of T.S. Eliot: Vol 4: 1929–1929 (Faber, 2013)
Letters of T.S. Eliot: Vol 5: 1930–1931 (Faber, 2014)
Letters of T.S. Eliot: Vol 6: 1932-1933 (Faber, 2016)
Letters of T.S. Eliot: Vol 7: 1934-1935 (Faber, 2017)
