I work on the history of the English language and its intersections with society and literary culture from 1600 to the present. I have particular interests in 18th-and 19th-century British literature, lexicography, sexuality, gender, slang, and print censorship. My current research projects are on:
- The correspondence of James Murray, the first chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1879 to 1915 (MurrayScriptorium.org). This project is funded by a 2026 ERC Starting Grant (ENCOED).
- Philology and sexuality in Britain from 1700 to 1840, especially in the writing of Anne Lister, Byron, and Hester Lynch Piozzi.
- The manuscript revisions of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) by Francis Grose, one of the first standalone dictionaries of English slang.
Research interests
- History of English
- 18th- and 19th-century British literature
- History of gender
- History of sexuality
- Print censorship
- World Englishes
- Dictionaries
- Sociolinguistics
Although my research focusses on English from the early modern onwards, my teaching stretches back to Old and Middle English. During the 2024–25 academic year, I am teaching Prelims Paper 1A ‘Introduction to English Language’ and FHS Course II Paper 4 ‘History of the English Language to c. 1800’.
