Spotlight on Staff: Professor Adam Smyth
Tell us about your research interests
I like thinking about how the material form of texts interacts with their literary qualities. How was writing produced, printed, circulated, read, and preserved? What idea of a book did a writer have as they wrote? How did that idea shape what they imagined? Mostly I work on early modern writing – so, about 1500 to 1700 – but I’m interested in writing from all periods.
Which book has had the biggest impact on you?
I grew up in a very unbookish household (my dad had a copy of Edge of Glass, dog-eared at page 30, on his bedside table for 15 years), and the really influential books came to me late – Tristram Shandy, Middlemarch, Ulysses. The first authors who really floored me as a young adult were Borges and WG Sebald.
What do you do in your spare time?
Printing. Bad Am Dram. Music. Non-academic writing. Playing football. Lots of galleries. Creative projects. I like starting things that weren’t there before.
Describe your ideal day.
It’s tempting to imagine a Fitzgerald-like string of casinos and yachts, but probably I’d settle for some combination of a gallery in the morning; an afternoon opening a box of unsorted diaries in a local archive; dinner with friends at somewhere very small but amazing in which a creative scheme is hatched; then live music (any kind). Obviously, I’ve never had a day like that.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would that be?
I’ve already lived in High Wycombe, so I’d probably say Los Angeles.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A journalist, or an archaeologist – I loved (and love) the idea of digging things up from the past, literally or metaphorically. I was good at the drums when I was 11, but then everyone else caught up. I didn’t know what a professor was – or a university – so that wasn’t on the horizon.
Who had the greatest influence on you during your childhood?
Most obviously my mum and dad, but more quietly, and in ways I only saw in retrospect, my grandfather on my mum’s side. He was interested in some of the things I became interested in – writing, poetry, contemporary art, books, old buildings, archives. I wrote a small book about him called 13 March 1911.
Who were your childhood heroes?
I had posters on the wall, but I didn’t have heroes.
What teacher had the greatest impact on you?
My earliest teachers are still very vivid to me. In terms of influencing me, I’d probably say Agnes Cameron. She was the head-teacher of the little village primary I went to, and she was the first to really stick with the silent-7-year-old-me.
Do you have pets?
Since hamster Ringo died we’ve not got round to a replacement. Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia features a generation-spanning tortoise: I’d like one of those. I’m very attracted to the idea of a pet you can put in the fridge.
Were you popular as a teenager?
Not particularly. Or at least not beyond a small group. For most of my teenage years my primary aim was to pass unnoticed.
What is your favourite music?
My dad was a musician, and I grew up playing (drums, piano, singing) and listening and sitting at the back during the concerts he organised with my mum in the village hall. Here are the top names on my Spotify recent history: Tom Waits, Brenda Fassie, Beatles, Communards, Beethoven, Schubert, Guys & Dolls, Zach Bryan, Purcell, REM, Taylor Swift, Beyonce.
If you could have dinner with five famous people from history, who would they be?
I imagine Ben Jonson would have appalling table manners, and Andy Warhol wouldn’t say much, and Margery Kempe simply wouldn’t turn up. So they are off the list. I like putting unlikely things next to each other, so let’s say George Eliot, Bill Hicks, Lytton Strachey, Brian Clough, with Emily Dickinson seated (as football commentators say) in a withdrawn position.
Describe yourself in five words.
Bipedal; earthborn; jaunty of gait.
How would your friends describe you?
You need to ask them. My 2 children (14 & 12) are in the room, so I’ll ask them.
They say: Funny. Hard-working. Creative. Unique. ‘You don’t like to have arguments.’
What do you like most about your job? What do you like least?
The best thing about my job is teaching, by a country mile. I am continually amazed by what students can do. The writing of some final-year undergraduates is incredible! What do I like least? That’s something for the pub, but the separation between colleges and faculties is continually frustrating.
Why are we here?
Love – kindness – thinking – listening – laughter.
If you weren’t a member of the English Faculty, what would you be?
My dream job would be to host a late-night radio phone-in show where people call in with thoughts and ideas from all over the place. 11pm-1am, Friday night. I have a head-set and pace around a large, dimly-lit, open-plan studio as I speak to them. ‘Cyril on line two wants to abolish all property.’ ‘Sam on line five wants to defend the congestion charge.’ That kind of thing. I grew up obsessed with these kinds of shows on local radio, and I think much of my writing, even in its most academic form, is a kind of refracted version of these sorts of interaction.
Adam Smyth is Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, Oxford. He works on the connections between literature and material texts, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries, but also more widely. He is the author of five books (most recently, The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in 18 Remarkable Lives (2024)), and the editor or co-editor of five collections of essays (including Book Parts, with Dennis Duncan). Adam is the co-founder and co-editor of the creative-critical Inscription: the Journal of Material Text – Theory, Practice, History, and is a founder member of the 39 Steps Press printing collective, based in a very cold barn in Oxfordshire. He writes regularly for the London Review of Books.