天美传媒

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Creative Arts, Technology and Science

I joined the 天美传媒 as Professor of English Literature in September 2012. Before then, I had been Professor of English Literature at the Open 天美传媒, and from 2000 until 2008 I was Head of the Department of English there. Upon my retirement from the 天美传媒 in August 2015, I was appointed Visiting Professor.

My main research interests are in English literature of the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries, in particular the writings of John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe. I was lead editor of the annual Bunyan Studies: A Journal of Reformation and Nonconformist Culture from 1988 until 2021, and from 2001 to 2004 I served as President of the . Together with P.N. Furbank, I was General Editor of The Works of Daniel Defoe, published by Pickering & Chatto (44 volumes, 2000鈥�2009).

I am also interested in aspects of the history of the book, especially textual editing, bibliography and the history of reading. Between 2006 and 2011 I was Principal Investigator on two linked AHRC-funded projects, '', and 'Developing an International Network in the History of Reading'.

In 2004 I was elected a Fellow of the English Association, and in 2013 I was elected a member of the International Association of 天美传媒 Professors of English.

Qualifications

• PhD, 'A Critical Edition of John Bunyan's Posthumously Published Treatise Of Antichrist, and His Ruine (1692)', The Open 天美传媒, 1984
• BA, first class honours, English Language and Literature, 天美传媒 of Ulster, 1977

Teaching expertise

• English Literature (especially of the early modern period and up to the end of the eighteenth century).

Research projects (current)

• Entries for the 鈥楲iterary Bedfordshire鈥� project on a number of writers born in Bedfordshire, including John Bunyan (1628鈥�88), Dorothy Osborne (1627鈥�95), and William Hale White, also known as 鈥楳ark Rutherford鈥� (1813鈥�1913).
• The writings of a controversial Puritan diarist and clergyman, Thomas Larkham (1602鈥�69).
• John Bunyan鈥檚 reading and interpretation of the Bible.

External roles (recent and current)

• Member of the Executive Committee of the International John Bunyan Society
• 'Network Partner' on the AHRC-funded project 'Voices and Books, 1500鈥�1800'
• Member of Advisory Board for the AHRC-funded project 鈥楻eading Communities: Connecting the Past and the Present鈥�
• Advisory Board member of the Cambridge 天美传媒 Press edition of The Letters of Daniel Defoe.
• Member of the Board of Directors of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP)
• Member of the Board of Advisors for ABO: A Digital Archive of Early Modern Annotated Books
• Member of Editorial Advisory Board for English: The Journal of the English Association
• Member of the Editorial Committee of the Friends of Dr Williams's Library Annual Lectures
• External examiner for MA in Renaissance and Eighteenth-Century Studies, 天美传媒 of Liverpool
• Emeritus Professor, The Open 天美传媒
• Visiting Fellow, Northumbria 天美传媒

Invited papers and lectures (from 2012 onwards)

• October 2012, 'Researching the History of Reading: The RED Project', Department of Humanities, Northumbria 天美传媒
• March 2013, 'William Hale White ("Mark Rutherford") and Nonconformity in the Nineteenth Century', John Bunyan Museum, Bedford
• May 2013, 'Researching Bible Reading in England: Evidence from the Reading Experience Database (RED)', 天美传媒 of Helsinki, Finland
• June 2013, 'Jerome McGann's "Social Textual Criticism" and the Editing of Literary Texts from the Long Eighteenth Century', North East Forum for Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Studies, Newcastle
• August 2013, 'Nonconformity in the Novels of William Hale White ("Mark Rutherford"), Princeton 天美传媒, USA
• December 2013, 'Editing Defoe: Reflections on Theory and Practice', Aix-Marseille Universit茅, France
• January 2014 (with Alexis Weedon), 'Researching the Publishing History of The Pilgrim's Progress', 天美传媒 of Reading
• May 2014, '"But What if the Queen Should Die?": Defoe, the Dissenters, and the Succession', Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies, London
• July 2015, 鈥楨diting Defoe鈥�, at the Fourth Biennial Conference of the Defoe Society, Bath Spa 天美传媒
• July 2016, 鈥樷�淭here you shall enjoy your friends again鈥�: Bunyan鈥檚 Concept of Heaven鈥�, at the Eighth Triennial Conference of the International John Bunyan Society, Aix-Marseille Universit茅, France
• July 2016, 鈥樚烀来絠ng Reading and Readers using the Reading Experience Database (RED)鈥�, at the International Association of 天美传媒 Professors of English: Triennial Conference, 天美传媒 of London
• September 2016, 鈥楻eading Aloud, Past and Present鈥�, at 鈥楻eading Communities: Connecting the Past and the Present鈥�, 天美传媒 of London
• February 2017, 鈥楯ohn Bunyan and the Heavenly City鈥�, the 2017 Limborough Lecture, given to the Worshipful Company of Weavers, St Bartholomew the Great, London.
• April 2017, 鈥楤ringing Literature to Life: Reading Aloud鈥�, at a conference on 鈥楲iterature and Life鈥�, 天美传媒 of Exeter.
• July 2022, 鈥樷�淎 Reading and Giving of the Sense鈥�: The Practice of Reading Aloud in Dissenting Culture鈥�, and contribution to Roundtable on 鈥楨diting Bunyan鈥�, at the Tenth Triennial Conference of the International John Bunyan Society, Northumbria 天美传媒, Newcastle.
• October 2022, 鈥楤unyan鈥檚 Readers鈥�, at a conference celebrating 350^th anniversary of the founding of Bunyan Meeting, Bedford.

Publications

Books (from 2000 onwards)

• (ed.), Dissent, Volume 3, Political and Economic Writings of Daniel Defoe, London: Pickering & Chatto, 2000
• (ed.), Social Reform, Volume 8, Political and Economic Writings of Daniel Defoe, London: Pickering & Chatto, 2000
• (ed.), John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 2003
• (ed.), The True-Born Englishman and Other Poems, Volume 1, Satire, Fantasy and Writings on the Supernatural by Daniel Defoe, London: Pickering & Chatto, 2003
• (consulting editor), The Selected Works of Delarivier Manley, ed. Rachel Carnell and Ruth Herman, 5 vols, Pickering & Chatto, 2005
• (ed.), A New Family Instructor, Volume 3, Religious & Didactic Writings by Daniel Defoe, Pickering & Chatto, 2006
• (with P. N. Furbank), A Political Biography of Daniel Defoe, Pickering & Chatto, 2006
• (ed.), The Complete English Gentleman and Of Royal Education, Volume 10, Religious & Didactic Writings of Daniel Defoe, Pickering & Chatto, 2007
• (ed. with Stuart Sim), Reception, Appropriation, Recollection: Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Peter Lang, 2007
• (ed.), The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Volume 1, The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Pickering & Chatto, 2008
• (ed.), The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Volume 2, The Novels of Daniel Defoe, Pickering & Chatto, 2008
• (ed. with Delia da Sousa Correa), The Handbook to Literary Research, second rev. edn, Routledge, 2010
• (ed.), The Gospels: Authorized King James Version, Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 2011
• (ed. with Shafquat Towheed), The History of Reading, Vol. 1, International Perspectives, c.1500鈥�1990, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
• (ed. with Katie Halsey), The History of Reading, Vol. 2, Evidence from the British Isles, c.1750鈥�1950, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
• (consulting editor), Christianity Not as Old as the Creation: The Last of Defoe's Performances, ed. G. A. Starr, Pickering & Chatto, 2012
• (ed. with Michael Davies), The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan, Oxford 天美传媒 Press, 2018.
• (ed. with Nicola Darwood and Alexis Weedon), Fiction and 鈥楾he Woman Question鈥� from 1850 to 1930, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.

Journal editing (from 2012 onwards)

• Bunyan Studies: A Journal of Reformation and Nonconformist Culture
  • Number 16 (2012)
  • Number 17 (2013), special issue: 鈥榃illiam Hale White (鈥淢ark Rutherford鈥�), 1831鈥�1913鈥�
  • Number 18 (2014)
  • Number 19 (2015), special issue: 鈥楻eligion and Politics in Bunyan鈥檚 Writings鈥�
  • Number 20 (2016), special issue: 鈥楧issenting Hands鈥�
  • Number 21 (2017)
  • Number 22 (2018), special issue: 鈥楥irculation, Appropriation, Translation: George Herbert and John Bunyan鈥�
  • Number 23 (2019)
  • Number 24 (2020), special issue: 鈥楬onest Labour: Work and Nonconformity鈥�
  • Number 25 (2021)

Articles, book chapters, and reviews (from 2012 onwards)

• 'The English Version of the Polyglot Bible', in Senate House Library, 天美传媒 of London, ed. Christopher Pressler and Karen Attar, Scala Publishers (2012)
• 'Writing from Prison: John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress', in The English Review, 23:2 (2012)
• 'Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, and the Barbary Pirates', in English, 62 (2013)
• 'William Hale White, Nonconformist and Novelist', in Bunyan Studies, number 17 (2013)
• (jointly with Alexis Weedon), '"My Pilgrim's Book has travel'd Sea and Land": Researching the Publishing History of The Pilgrim's Progress', in The Recorder, number 20 (2014)
• Review of Michael Brealey, Bedford's Victorian Pilgrim: William Hale White in Context, in English, 63 (2014)
• 'A Previously Unknown Photograph of "The Cottage", Groombridge', in The Newsletter of the Mark Rutherford Society, spring (2014).
• Review of Jane Darcy, Melancholy and Literary Biography, 1640-1816, in The Cowper and Newton Journal, 5 (2015)
• Review of Patricia Hurry, Catalogue of the Congregational History Society Library, in Congregational History Society Magazine, 7:5 (2015)
• Review of Kirsty Milne, At Vanity Fair: From Bunyan to Thackeray, in Review of English Studies, 67 (2016)
• 'Religious Writings and the Early Novel', in The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel, ed. J.A. Downie, Oxford 天美传媒 Press, 2016
• 'References to Hale White/Mark Rutherford in RED鈥�, in The Newsletter of the Mark Rutherford Society, spring (2017)
• 鈥榃ays of Engaging New Readers with The Pilgrim鈥檚 Progress鈥�, in The Recorder, number 23 (2017)
• 鈥樚烀来絠ng Readers and Reading using the Reading Experience Database (RED)鈥�, in English Without Boundaries, ed. Jane Roberts and Trudi L. Darby, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017
• 'Bunyan's Posthumously Published Works', in The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan, ed. Michael Davies and W. R. Owens, Oxford 天美传媒 Press, 2018
• 鈥樷�淏ut what if the Queen should die?鈥�: Defoe, the Dissenters, and the Succession鈥�, in Negotiating Toleration: Dissent and the Hanoverian Succession 1714鈥�1760, ed. Benjamin Bankhurst and Nigel Aston, Oxford 天美传媒 Press, 2019
• Review of Jordan Alexander Stein, When Novels were Books, in Bunyan Studies, 27 (2023)
• 鈥樷�淭here you shall enjoy your friends again鈥�: Bunyan鈥檚 Depiction of Heaven鈥�, in The Puritan Literary Tradition, ed. Johanna Harris and Alison Searle, 2024

Conference organisation

• July 2008, co-organiser of three-day international conference on 鈥楨vidence of Reading: Reading the Evidence鈥�, held at the Institute of English Studies, 天美传媒 of London
• June 2013, co-organiser of one-day conference 鈥榃illiam Hale White (鈥淢ark Rutherford鈥�) 100 Years On鈥�, held at Dr Williams鈥檚 Library, London
• April 2015, co-organiser of one-day conference 鈥楻epresenting Dissent in the Long Eighteenth Century鈥�, held at the 天美传媒
• July 2016, member of Advisory Committee organising four-day international conference on 鈥榁oicing Dissent in the Long Reformation鈥�, held at Aix-Marseille 天美传媒, France
• April 2017, co-organiser of one-day conference 鈥楶risons and Prison Writing in Early-Modern Britain鈥�, held at Northumbria 天美传媒
• April 2018, co-organiser of one-day conference 鈥楻emembrance and Re-Appropriation: Shaping Dissenting Identities鈥�, held at Keele 天美传媒
• June 2018, co-organiser of one-day conference 鈥楲iterature and 鈥淭he Woman Question鈥�, held at the 天美传媒
• April 2019, co-organiser of one-day conference 鈥楬onest Labour: Exploring the Interface between Work and Nonconformity鈥�, held at Loughborough 天美传媒

Contact details

E: bob.owens@beds.ac.uk

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