Cook, Daniel

Dr Daniel Cook specialises in 18th- and 19th-century literature, book history, authorship and appropriation studies, the history of the novel, poetic genres, and Scottish and Irish writing more broadly. Authors of specific interest include Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Thomas Chatterton, Robert Burns, Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, and Lord Byron.

Before joining Dundee he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as a Donald and Mary Hyde Fellow at Harvard. He held a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at the University of Bristol and, before that, an AHRC Research Fellowship on the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift. Daniel completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Cook serves on the executive boards of The Literary Encyclopedia, the Universities Committee for Scottish Literature, the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the British Association for Romantic Studies. For Romantic Textualities he curates a resident blog series, "Teaching Romanticism", and for Criticks he is the Reviews Editor for Media and New Media. At the University of Dundee, he is an Associate Director of the Centre for Scottish Culture.

My research examines the various ways in which authors, editors and readers shape literary legacies or "afterlives" in print. This work began with my first monograph, Thomas Chatterton and Neglected Genius, 1760-1830, in which I trace the publication and reception history of the works of Chatterton, a teenage poet and forger whose works were widely read, imitated and discussed in the long eighteenth century. More recently, I have focused on the life and works of Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, countless English and Irish political pamphlets, prose satires, and poems in all manner of styles and genres. I have also written about Wordsworth’s allusions to Chatterton and others, the literary ballad tradition, "beauties" collections, originality and genius, hack writing, and other topics in Philological Quarterly, Review of English Studies, Essays in Criticism, The Library, and other leading journals, and have edited essay collections and critical editions with Cambridge University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Bloomsbury, and other major publishers.

As a book historian my research takes place against the backdrop of significant change in literary copyright in England, Scotland and Ireland and its impact on definitions of authorship in the burgeoning print culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rather than stifling imitation and allusion, I seek to argue, shifting attitudes towards literary property gave rise to audaciously creative acts of plagiarism, pilfering and rewriting. My recent work in this area can be found in my contribution to a co-edited essay collection (with Nicholas Seager), The Afterlives of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, and elsewhere. Reaching across different subjects and approaches, my research always circles back to two fundamental questions. What is authorship? Who owns literature?

My broad research interests include:

• British and Irish literature before 1900 (especially fiction);
• Book history, reception history, and literary property;
• Authorship, forgery, adaptation and appropriation;
• Autobiography, biography, and literary afterlives.

Daniel Cook teaches the following modules.

Undergraduate:

• Introduction to Literary Study (EN11001 Level 1)
• Human Futures (HU11001 Level 1)
• Early Modern Literature, 1564-1740 (EN11006 Level 1)
• Romantic to Victorian Literature (EN22002 Level 2)
• Staging Cultures: Renaissance to Restoration Theatre (EN31024 Level 3)
• The English Novel (pre-1900) (EN32022 Level 3)
• Scottish and Irish Literature (pre-1900) (EN41027 Level 4)
• The Poison Pen (BS11006 - co-taught with Life Sciences)

Postgraduate:

• Scottish Literature, 1740-1830 (EN51031 Level 5)
• Jonathan Swift's Major Works (EN51033 Level 5)
• The Gothic Tradition (EN51034 Level 5)
• British and Irish Poetry, 1680-1830 (EN51022 Level 5)
• Special Author: directed reading (EN52039 Level 5)
• Approaches to Literary and Visual Culture (HU51001 Level 5)

In 2014, Daniel won the Creative Teaching: Recognising Innovative Practice Award at the College Teaching and Good Practice Awards, University of Dundee.

He also convenes the MLitt in English Studies and so would be delighted to hear from any prospective students.