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Dr. Clare Clarke B.A. , M.A., Ph.D. (QUB)Assistant Professor

Research and Teaching Interests

I joined the School of English at Trinity as an Assistant Professor in 19th-Century Literature in 2014, having previously taught at Queen’s University Belfast and having held an IRC Post-Doctoral research fellowship at Trinity in 2012-2013.

Research

I have two major research interests: late-nineteenth century popular fiction and crime and detective fiction from the Victorian period to the present day. I have published widely on Victorian crime fiction in journals such as Victorian Periodicals Review, Victorian Literature and Culture, and CLUES: A Journal of Detection. My first monograph Late-Victorian Crime Fiction in the Shadows of Sherlock (Palgrave Macmillan: 2014) was the winner of the HRF Keating Award for best non-fiction crime book of the year. My second monograph, British Detective Fiction 1891-1901: The Successors to Sherlock Holmes was published by Palgrave in July 2020.

I am currently working on four projects:

a new monograph project, which is a critical biography of a real-life husband-and-wife owned private detective agency operating in Victorian London, entitled Mr and Mrs Sherlock Holmes: The True Adventures of Moser and Moser, Victorian London’s most scandalous detective duo.
a new edition of The Return of Sherlock Holmes for Edinburgh University Press.
a ‘Companion to True Crime’, co-edited with my colleague Dr Bernice M. Murphy.
a digital map of space and place in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, funded by a TCD Provost’s Project Award

Teaching

Much of my teaching involves nineteenth-century popular literature and/or crime fiction. My Sophister Option courses are 'Nineteenth-Century Detective Fiction: The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes', 'The Art of Murder', and ‘Reading Like a Victorian: The Woman in White in instalments.’ At Freshman level, I am convenor of 'British Romantic Literature' and teach on 'Pulp', 'Victorian Literature,' 'US American Identities', ‘Cultures of Retelling,’ and the Trinity Elective module 'Travel and Literature.’

At Postgraduate level, I am the Co-Director, with Professor Darryl Jones, of the MPhil in Modern and Contemporary Literary Studies. I convene the core module 'Perspectives in Modern and Contemporary Literature', which is divided into four thematic half-term blocks: Writing the City, Identities, Fictive Futures, and Cultural Afterlives. On the MPhil I also offer the option module 'Shedunnit: Women and Crime from the 19th to the 21st century.'

PhD and Postdoctoral Supervision

I welcome enquiries about doctoral and postdoctoral research on the following topics: crime fiction, true crime, Victorian periodical and newspaper culture, fin de siècle literature, popular genres, professional authorship. I would especially warmly welcome proposals for projects dealing with late Victorian popular fiction, particularly crime or detective fiction.

If you would like to apply to do a PhD under my supervision please fill out this template: https://www.tcd.ie/English/assets/pdf/pgr-admissions-inquiry-template.pdf

More details can be found here under ‘admissions’: https://www.tcd.ie/English/postgraduate/research-students/

Publications

Monographs

British Detective Fiction, 1891 – 1901: the Successors to Sherlock Holmes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
Late-Victorian Crime Fiction in the Shadows of Sherlock. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) [Paperback June 2016]. ISBN: 9780230390539. Winner of the HRF Keating Award.

For a full list of my publications please see: https://www.tcd.ie/research/profiles/?profile=clarkc11