Nick Groom

Nick Groom FRSA (born 1966) is Professor of English Literature at the University of Exeter, a critically acclaimed author on subjects ranging from the history of the Union Jack^[1][2] to Thomas Chatterton,^[3][4] has edited several books and regularly appears on television, radio and at literary festivals as an authority on English Literature and the ‘Gothic’ and ‘British’ identity.^{[5][6][7][8][9]}

Early years

Nicholas Groom was born in 1966 and educated at Bedford Modern School^[10] and Hertford College, Oxford where he graduated with first class honours in 1988.^[5] He was made DPhil (Oxon) in 2004 with his dissertation, Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Its Context, Presentation, and Reception.^[5][11]

Career

Groom became a lecturer in English at the University of Exeter in 1994, a Senior Lecturer in Post-Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol in 2000 and Reader in English Literature at the University of Bristol in 2003.^[5] In April 2000 he was a Visiting Associate Professor at Stanford University following which he was made Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago in October 2001.^[5]

In 2007 Groom was made Professor of English Literature at the University of Exeter and was appointed co-director of the Exeter Centre for Literatures of Identity, Place and Sustainability in 2008.^[5]

Groom’s research has ‘largely focussed on three areas; cultural formation and authenticity, including attribution studies (work on forgery and, specifically, Chatterton); national identity (Englishness and Britishness, including the Gothic); and historicist popular culture and folklore (seasons and saints’ days)’.^[5]

Groom wrote an essay on The Young Ones for The Cassell Book of Great British Comedy and in 2008 he nominated Rik Mayall for an Honorary Degree at the University of Exeter.^[12] Following Mayall’s death in 2014, Groom was regularly interviewed to comment on Mayall’s unique contribution to English comedy.

Groom is a critically acclaimed author, has edited several books including a twelve volume edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare (London and Bristol: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1995),^[13] has contributed over thirty chapters in edited collections, articles in several academic journals^[5] and regularly reviews books for The Financial Times, Times Higher Education and The Independent.^[5]

Bibliography

Books

• Groom, Nick (1999). The making of Percy's Reliques. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
• Thomas Chatterton and romantic culture. Published by London: Macmillan ; New York : St Martin’s Press, 1999^[14]
• Introducing Shakespeare (Cambridge: Icon, 2001), with illustrations by Piero. 176pp.^[5][6][15]
• The Forger’s Shadow: How Forgery Changed the Course of Literature (London: Picador, 2002; paperback, 2003). 350pp.^[5][6]
• The Union Jack: The Story of the British Flag (London: Atlantic, 2006; paperback, 2007). xxii + 398pp^[5][6]
• The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Xviii + 164pp.^[5][6][16]
• The Seasons: An Elegy for the Passing of the Year (London: Atlantic, 2013), 400pp.^[5][6][17]

Critical studies, reviews and biography

• McDonagh, Melanie (4 January 2014). "Eat, drink and be merry ...". Books. The Spectator. 324 (9671): 20–21.  Review of The seasons.

References

External links

• Nick Groom at WorldCat Identities
• Nick Groom at The University of Exeter
• Nick Groom on BBC Radio 6