I’m an author and academic specialising in Victorian literature and popular culture. My books include Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction (2011), The Cambridge Companion to Sherlock Holmes (2019), and the forthcoming Literary Illusions: Performance Magic and Victorian Literature (2022).

I have published widely in academic journals (including Studies in the Novel, Victorian Periodicals Review, Clues: A Journal of Detection, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, and Women: A Cultural Review) and media outlets including The Conversation. I’ve consulted on literature and culture for outlets including Sky News, BBC Radio 3, the Open University, the Press Association, and BBC Radio Solent.

My public talks include events for the Dickens Birthplace Museum, the Dickens Fellowship, Stafford Carnegie Old Library Trust, Being Human festival, Portsmouth Thought, Portsmouth Festivities, and Havant Literary Festival. I’ve presented interviews with writers including Claire Tomalin, Judith Flanders, and Maria Konnikova.