Skip to main content

Professor Anthony Mandal

BA (Dunelm), MA, PhD (Wales)

Professor in Print and Digital Cultures

School of English, Communication and Philosophy

Email
Mandal@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 29208 75626
Campuses
John Percival Building, Room 1.13, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU
Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

I am Director of the Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research, which focuses on research and teaching in the fields of book history, textual scholarship and the digital humaniites. I also direct the Cardiff Digital Cultures Network, which brings together scholars, creative practitioners and library/museum professionals who are working in various aspects of the digital.

My research and teaching focus on the history of the book, digital humanities and nineteenth-century literature, particularly the gothic and women’s writing. My most recent book is the first scholarly edition of a Regency best-seller, Self-Control by Mary Brunton (Routledge, 2014), and I am currently preparing two book-length projects that focus on the gothic. The first looks at the interactions between the gothic tradition and immersive play, while the second looks at the relationship between Romantic gothic writing and the publishing trade.

Much of my work is collaborative in nature. I am a General Editor of The New Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, and founding Editor of the online journal Romantic Textualities: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840. In addition, I co-edit two book series: UWP's Gothic Originals, with Prof. Andrew Smith, and Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures, with Dr Jenny Kidd.

In the summer of 2019, I was elected President of the British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS), having served as Vice-President between 2015 and 2019.

I have presented over 70 talks at conferences, research seminars and public lectures, including outreach talks for the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Cardiff University’s Innovation Network, Cardiff BookTalk and the Historical Association, as well as writing for The Conversation

I would welcome enquiries from potential research students interested in studying history of the book and print culture, nineteenth-century fiction, the gothic and digital humanities; and from public groups or media outlets interested in my research and scholarship.

Publication

2023

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

  • Mandal, A. ed. 2013. Romantic textualities: Literature and print culture, 1780–1840. Issue 21 (Winter 2013). Cardiff: Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Gothic and the publishing world, 1790–1830. In: Byron, G. and Townshend, D. eds. The Gothic World. Routledge Worlds London and New York: Routledge, pp. 159-171.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Composition and publication. In: Todd, J. ed. The Cambridge Companion to 'Pride and Prejudice'. Cambridge Companions to Literature Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 42-55.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Inheritance. In: Hughes, W., Punter, D. and Smith, A. eds. The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 344-345.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Intertext. In: Hughes, W., Punter, D. and Smith, A. eds. The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 350-356.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Phobia. In: Hughes, W., Punter, D. and Smith, A. eds. The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 491-494.

2010

2009

  • Mandal, A. 2009. Austen's European reception. In: Johnson, C. L. and Tuite, C. eds. A Companion to Jane Austen. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 422-433.

2008

2007

2006

2004

2003

2002

2001

  • Mandal, A. 2001. Decadence. In: Clark, R., Elliott, E. and Todd, J. eds. Literary Dictionary and Encyclopaedia. The Literary Dictionary Company Limited

2000

1999

1997

Articles

Book sections

  • Mandal, A. 2020. Gothic fiction, from shilling shockers to penny bloods. In: Townshend, D., Wright, A. and Catherine Spooner, . eds. The Cambridge History of the Gothic., Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 139-161., (10.1017/9781108561082.007)
  • Mandal, A. 2020. Fear and loathing in the library: anxious textuality in recent gothic fiction. In: Ascari, M., Baiesi, S. and Palatinus, D. L. eds. Gothic Metamorphoses across the Centuries: Contexts, Legacies, Media. Critical Perspectives on English and American Literature, Communication and Culture Peter Lang, pp. 165-178.
  • Mandal, A. 2018. The ghost story and the Victorian literary marketplace. In: Brewster, S. and Thurston, L. eds. The Routledge Handbook to the Ghost Story. Routledge Handbooks New York and London: Routledge, pp. 29-39.
  • Mandal, A. 2017. Hyde: monsters, mashups and the Gothic body in the twenty-first century. In: Hill, R. J. ed. Robert Louis Stevenson and the Great Affair: Movement, Memory and Modernity. Routledge, pp. 235-251.
  • Mandal, A. 2015. Gothic 2.0: Remixing revenants in the transmedia age. In: Piatti-Farnell, L. and Brien, D. L. eds. New Directions in 21st-Century Gothic: The Gothic Compass. Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature London and New York: Routledge, pp. 84-100.
  • Mandal, A. 2015. Fiction. In: Looser, D. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Women's Writing of the Romantic Period. Cambridge Companions to Literature Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 16-31.
  • Mandal, A. 2015. Evangelical fiction. In: Garside, P. and O'Brien, K. eds. The Oxford History of the Novel in English, Vol. 2: 1750--1820. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 255-272.
  • Mandal, A. 2014. Two centuries of 'Pride and Prejudice': why celebrate?. In: Colomba, C. ed. Pride and Prejudice: A Bicentennial Bricolage. Udine: Forum Editrice, pp. 19-32.
  • Mandal, A. 2014. Introduction. In: Mandal, A. ed. Mary Brunton, Self-Control: A Novel. London and Brookfield, VT: Pickering & Chatto, pp. xiii-xliii.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Gothic and the publishing world, 1790–1830. In: Byron, G. and Townshend, D. eds. The Gothic World. Routledge Worlds London and New York: Routledge, pp. 159-171.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Composition and publication. In: Todd, J. ed. The Cambridge Companion to 'Pride and Prejudice'. Cambridge Companions to Literature Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 42-55.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Inheritance. In: Hughes, W., Punter, D. and Smith, A. eds. The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 344-345.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Intertext. In: Hughes, W., Punter, D. and Smith, A. eds. The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 350-356.
  • Mandal, A. 2013. Phobia. In: Hughes, W., Punter, D. and Smith, A. eds. The Encyclopedia of the Gothic. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 491-494.
  • Mandal, A. 2010. Bridging the Gap(of Sighs)? Fiction and sensibility after 1800. In: Bystydzienska, G. and Harris, E. eds. From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria: Readings in 18th- and 19th-Century British Literature and Culture., Vol. 2. Warsaw: University of Warsaw Press, pp. 299-321.
  • Mandal, A. 2009. Austen's European reception. In: Johnson, C. L. and Tuite, C. eds. A Companion to Jane Austen. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 422-433.
  • Mandal, A. 2007. Introduction. In: Mandal, A. and Southam, B. eds. The reception of Jane Austen in Europe. The reception of British and Irish authors in Europe Continuum
  • Mandal, A. 2006. Language. In: Todd, J. ed. Jane Austen in context. The Cambridge edition of the works of Jane Austen Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 23-32.
  • Mandal, A. 2004. Jane Austen and the literary marketplace: a context. In: Battaglia, B. and Saglia, D. eds. Re-drawing Austen: picturesque travels in Austenland. Romanticismo e dintorni Vol. 11. Naples: Liguori, pp. 405-414.
  • Mandal, A. 2004. Hannah Maria Jones. In: Cannadine, D. ed. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 101063. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Mandal, A. 2004. Catherine George Ward. In: Cannadine, D. ed. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 101063270.
  • Mandal, A. 2001. Decadence. In: Clark, R., Elliott, E. and Todd, J. eds. Literary Dictionary and Encyclopaedia. The Literary Dictionary Company Limited

Books

Datasets

Monographs

Research

My research focuses principally on nineteenth-century literature and its engagement with contemporary print culture. I am also interested in the gothic, book history and digital humanities.

My first monograph, Jane Austen the Popular Novel: The Determined Author (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), contextualised the most canonical novelist of the Romantic period against the best-sellers of her time and the book trade, both of which shaped her writing in significant ways. A counterpart project to this was the collection of essays I co-edited with Brian Southam, on The Reception of Jane Austen in Europe (Bloomsbury, 2007; rev. 2014). My work on Romantic fiction has continued with the first scholarly edition of Mary Brunton's Self-Control (Routledge, 2014), which became an instant best-seller on its publication in 1811.

I have also collaborated on a number of digital and bibliographical works, based in the Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research, which I co-founded in 1998 and currently direct: The English Novel, 1800–1836 (British Academy, 2003); British Fiction, 1800–1829: A Database of Production, Circulation and Reception (AHRC, 2004); and the Database of Mid-Victorian Illustration (AHRC, 2007, 2011). In 2009, I became one of the General Editors of The New Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, which is to be published in 39 volumes: the first wave of volumes, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, appeared from 2013. In 1997, I founded the online journal, Romantic Textualiites: Literature and Print Culture, 1780–1840, which I currently co-edit with Maximiliaan van Woudenberg.

I have recently completed book chapters on nineteenth-century gothic chapbooks and penny literature, on the haunted library in contemporary gothic novels, and on the ghost story and the literary marketplace, as well as a journal article on Elizabeth Meeke, the most prolific novelist of the Romantic period. I am currently preparing two invited book chapters on Jane Austen and the digital.

My wider research presently focuses in two aspects of the gothic: 

  • The first project considers the relationship between the gothic tradition and immersive play, looking at the intersections between creativity and criticism. This emerges from my experiences in an AHRC-funded collaboration that took place between 2013 and 2016 to adapt Stevenson's gothic classic, Jekyll and Hyde, into an immersive experience driven by the biological data, interactions and movements of participants. The book will consider the relationship between authenticity and legitimacy in the gothic text; the posthuman condition and gothic subjectivities; and the ludic nature of gothic writing.
  • The second project is The Palgrave History of Gothic Publishing: The Business of Gothic Fiction, 1764–1835. This  book, co-written with Franz Potter and Nicky Lloyd, looks at first-wave gothic fiction and the book trade. It will comprise a series of overview chapters and A–Z entries that examine authors, publishers, printers and other print cultural agents that produced and circulated gothic fiction in Britain during its early years.

I was also co-organiser of WISE: What Is Scholarly Editing?, funded by the AHRC's Collaborative Research Skills Development scheme. This comprised a series of workshops to be held in Cardiff, Durham and London between 2014 and 2015, in order to train doctoral students and Early Career Researchers in the theory and practice of editing. Since December 2015, I have been leading the development of a Digital Cultures Network at Cardiff University. This expertise has also translated into my co-editorship of two new book series: Gothic Originals, with Andrew Smith for the University of Wales Press, and Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures, with Jenny Kidd.

Research interests

  • Romantic and Victorian fiction, particularly Jane Austen and Robert Louis Stevenson
  • gothic literature
  • book history and print culture
  • textual editing and bibliography
  • digital humanities/cultures
  • literature and/as gaming
  • British–European literary exchanges.

Teaching

I have taught undergraduate modules on Jane Austen, the novel in the Romantic age, the gothic and sensation fiction, and postgraduate courses on Romanticism, book history and digital humanities.

I have supervised MA dissertations on Jane Austen, the gothic and sensation fiction, and am currently supervising doctoral projects on Victorian literature and medicine, digital horror and walking simluators as a literary genre.

As of August 2018, I am Director of Studies for the undergraduate programmes in English Literature and Creative Writing, and currently convene the Research Methods workshops for the MA in English Literature.

I have also acted as an external examiner or validator for undergraduate degrees at the Universitjes of Lincoln and Southampton, and am currently external examiner for the MAs in English and American Literatures at the University of Kent.

Biography

After completing my undergraduate degree in English Literature at the University of Durham, I came to Cardiff in 1995 to complete my MA in English Literature, focusing on nineteenth-century literature and its engagement with print culture. My postgraduate studies concluded in 2001, with a PhD entitled ‘Jane Austen and the Production of Fiction, 1785–1817’.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), and member of a number of academic societies, and was elected as the President of the British Association for Romantic Studies in July 2019, following four years as Vice-President. I also sit on a number of editorial boards for journals and scholarly initiatives, as well as regularly peer reviewing submissions to various academic publications. 

Academic positions

  • 2016– : Professor of Print and Digital Cultures, School of English, Communication and Philosophy (ENCAP), Cardiff University.
  • 2013–16: Reader in Print and Digital Cultures, ENCAP, Cardiff University.
  • 2009–13: Senior Lecturer in English Literature, ENCAP, Cardiff University.
  • 2004–09: Lecturer in English Literature, ENCAP, Cardiff University.
  • 2001–04: Postdoctoral Research Associate, ENCAP, Cardiff University.
  • 1997–2000: Associate Lecturer in English Literature, ENCAP.

Committees and reviewing

  • Editorial Board, Cardiff University Press.
  • Editorial Board, Open Book Publishers (www.openbookpublishers.com).
  • Editorial Board, Studies in Hogg and his World (ISSN 0960 6025).
  • Editorial Board, Studies in the Digital Humanities (ISSN 2050-7224).
  • Editorial Board, Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of the Works of James Hogg.
  • Editorial Board, The Edinburgh Edition of Arthur Conan Doyle.
  • Editorial Board, Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics (Rowman & Littlefield).
  • Editorial Board, English Literature and Culture in Context (Peter Lang).

Supervisions

I would welcome applications from potential graduate students interested in researching the following subjects:

  • book history, material cultures and digital humanities
  • the creative industries and digital media
  • videogames and/as literary forms
  • popular fiction and/or print culture from 1780 to 1910
  • gothic literature, sensation fiction, penny dreadfuls
  • Scottish literature
  • Jane Austen, James Hogg, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson

As well as having served as an internal examiner for Cardiff University's MPhil and PhD programmes, I have been an external examiner for doctoral projects at the universities of Oslo, Trinity College Dublin, Southampton, Sheffield, Kent, Exeter, Bath Spa and Victoria (Canada).

Current supervision

Soumia Medjahed

Soumia Medjahed

Research student

Alice Wilkinson

Alice Wilkinson

Research student