Elizabeth Napier
Professor Emerita of English
- enapier@middlebury.edu
Elizabeth Napier taught in the English Department at Middlebury College from 1978-2019. Her research and writing focus on eighteenth-century English literature, with a special emphasis on the novel, and on literary translation, with a particular interest in the writings of painter-poets. She taught mainly in the areas of eighteenth-century literature and the novel.
Professor Napier received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.
Publications
Writing the Poetry of Place in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature. Routledge, 2023 (in press).
Entries on Mary Collyer, Felicia to Charlotte (1744-49); Collyer (?), The History of Betty Barnes (1753); Collyer (?), The History of Miss Indiana Danby (1756-7); Anonymous, Eliza: Or, The History of Miss Granville (1763); Anonymous, The History of Miss Pamela Howard (1773); Anonymous, Seymour Castle (1789); Mr. Nicholson, The Solitary Castle (1789); Anonymous, The Modern Miniature (1792). The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1660-1820, edited by April London, Cambridge UP, forthcoming.
Trans. & introd. Sounds, by Wassily Kandinsky. Yale UP, 1981; revised edition, 2019.
Defoe’s Major Fiction: Accounting for the Self. U of Delaware P, 2016. (Choice “Outstanding Academic Title” and “Community College Top 75” awards); paperback edition, 2019.
Falling Into Matter: Problems of Embodiment in English Fiction from Defoe to Shelley. U of Toronto P, 2012.
“The Grapes of Wrath: Steinbeck’s Pilgrim’s Progress.” Steinbeck Review, vol. 7, no. 1, Spring, 2010, pp. 51-56.
“’Raining Cats and Dogs’: Swift’s ‘A Description of a City Shower’.” Explicator, vol. 65, no. 4, 2007, pp. 208-11.
F.T. Marinetti: Selected Poems and Related Prose, translated by Elizabeth R. Napier and Barbara R. Studholme, selected by Luce Marinetti, with an essay by Paolo Valesio. Yale UP, 2002.
The Failure of Gothic: Problems of Disjunction in an Eighteenth-century Literary Form. Clarendon P, 1987.
“Mary Collyer.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 1, edited by Martin C. Battestin.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 113-16.
“Elizabeth Griffith.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 1, edited by Martin C. Battestin.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 247-51.
“Elizabeth Inchbald.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 1, edited by Martin C. Battestin. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 274-80.
“Harriet Lee; Sophia Lee.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 1, edited by Martin C. Battestin. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 301-06.
“Matthew Gregory Lewis.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 1, edited by Martin C. Battestin. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 313-23.
“Ann Radcliffe.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 2, edited by Martin C. Battestin, Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 37-46.
“Clara Reeve.” British Novelists 1660-1800,vol. 2, edited by Martin C. Battestin. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 46-51.
“Elizabeth Rowe.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 2, edited by Martin C. Battestin. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 409-13.
“Sarah Scott.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 2, edited by Martin C. Battestin. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 413-18.
“Charlotte Smith.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 2, edited by Martin C. Battestin. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 433-40.
“Horace Walpole.” British Novelists 1660-1800, vol. 2, edited by Martin C. Battestin. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 39, BC Research, 1985, pp. 525-42.
“The Problem of Boundaries in Wuthering Heights.” Philological Quarterly, vol. 63, 1984, pp. 95-107. Rpt. (in part) in Major Literary Characters: Heathcliff, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House, 1993, pp. 48-50.
“Swift, Kaempfer, and Psalmanaazaar: Further Remarks on ‘Trampling upon the Crucifix’.” Notes and Queries, vol. 226, l98l, p. 226.
“Objects and Order in Robinson Crusoe.” The South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 80, 1981, pp. 84-94.
“Swift’s ‘Trampling upon the Crucifix’: A Parallel.” Notes and Queries, vol. 224, l979, pp. 544-48.
“Aylmer as ‘Scheidekünstler’: The Problem of Union and Separation in Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark.’” South Atlantic Bulletin, vol. 41, 1976, pp.32-35.
“ ‘Tremble and Reform’: The Inversion of Power in Richardson’s Clarissa.” ELH, vol. 42, 1975, pp. 214-23.