John Drew joined the Department of English as a lecturer in 1998, after a period of teaching as a Visiting Lecturer in the northern Spanish University of León. He was promoted to a personal chair in 2011, became Dean of Arts and Languages in 2014, followed by Dean of Humanities (2015-2018; 2020-21), and Dean of Academic Affairs (2021-23). He was Head of the Department of English and Digital Media from 2018 to 2020. He currently co-directs the research programmes in Charles Dickens Studies at the University, co-ordinates their seminar programme and supervises research students at Masterās and doctoral level.
His ORCiD is and his Google Scholar profile is .
Qualifications
- MA (BA) Hons, English Literature (Trinity, Oxford)
- PhD English Literature (Birkbeck, London)
Teaching Expertise
Professor Drew taught widely across all levels of the undergraduate programme and introduced numerous new modules and programmes.
Research Interests
These include 19th-century print culture, the Victorian miscellany, and in particular the journalistic work of Dickens and his contemporaries. Professor Drew directs the international research project Dickens Journals Online, which is centred around open access digital editions of two mid-century periodicals, Household Words and All the Year Round. He welcomes research proposals from any of these areas.
External Roles, past and present
- Visiting Fellow, the School of English and Creative Arts, University of Northampton
- Member of the Advisory Board of the Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens (Oxford University Press), and appointed editor for 5 volumes in the series
- International review, ARC (Australian Research Council)
- Regular reviewer for The Dickensian, Dickens Quarterly
- Peer reviews for a range of academic journals
Contact Details
- Tel: +44 (0)1280 820380
Selected Publications
- Drew, John M. L., āāI will show you where your son liesā: relocating Kiplingās āThe Gardenerā in 1920s print cultureā, Modernism/Modernity Volume 9, Cycle 2 (February 2025).
- John M. L. Drew, āThe Periodical and Journalistic writings of Dickens, āspecial correspondent for posterityāā The Chesterton Review 46.3 (2020), pp. 423-440
- John M. L. Drew, āāHumming-topsā and āSteampunk synergiesā: Dickensās Journalism and Non-Fiction since the turn of the Twenty-First Century,ā Nineteenth-Century Prose 46.1 (Spring 2019) pp. 7-34
- John M. L. Drew, āDickens, Miscellanies, and classical traditions of Satire,ā Dickens Quarterly 34.3 (2017) pp. 221ā4
- John Drew & Michael Slater, āWhatās in The Daily News?: a Re-evaluationā, The Dickensian 106.3 (2010), 197-207 & 107.1 (2011), 22-39
- John Drew, āTexts, paratexts and āe-textsā: the poetics of communication in Dickensās journalismā, in Dickens and Modernity, special issue of Essays and Studies (2012), ed. Juliet John, 40-55
- Hazel Mackenzie, Ben Winyard & John Drew, “Introduction to All the Year Round, Volume I, April 30-Oct 22, 1859″, Dickens Quarterly 29.3 (September 2012)
- Hazel Mackenzie, Ben Winyard & John Drew, “Introduction to Household Words, Volume I, March 30-Sept 21, 1850″, Dickens Quarterly 29.1 (March 2012)
- John Drew, “Reviewing Dickens in the Nineteenth-century Periodical Press”, in S. Ledger & H. Furneaux (eds), Charles Dickens in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 35-43
- John Drew, “The Victorian Newspaper and Periodical Market”, in S. Ledger & H. Furneaux (eds), Charles Dickens in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 109-17
- John Drew & Hugh Craig, “Did Dickens write ‘Temperate Temperance’? (An Attempt to Identify Authorship of an Anonymous Article in All the Year Round)”, Victorian Periodicals Review 44.3 (2011), 267-290
- John Drew, “Dickens on ‘Poor Hood’: a new article”, The Dickensian 104 (2008), 111-22
- John Drew, “Pictures from The Daily News: context, correspondences, and correlations”, Dickens Quarterly 24 (2007), 230-46
- John Drew, āIntroduction to All the Year Round Volume 2, October 29 1859āApril 7, 1860: Nos. 27-50ā³, Dickens Quarterly 30.3 (2013), 198ā222
- John Drew, ā2011 Michael Wolff Lecture: An uncommercial proposition?: At work on Household Words and All the Year Roundā, Victorian Periodicals Review 46.3 (2013), 291-316
- John Drew, āReasons to be Cheerful: Leigh Hunt and his Versatile, Trenchant, Observant, Empathetic, Witty Journalismā, in R. Lance Keeble & J. Tulloch (eds), Global Literary Journalism (New York: Peter Lang, 2014), 19-34
- John Drew, āCharles Dickens, Fictionā, in Felluga, D., Gilbert, P. & Hughes, L. (eds), Blackwell Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
