As the English department's specialist in eighteenth-century British literature, I teach courses on the eighteenth-century British novel and other related topics, such as Restoration drama and eighteenth-century satire. I also teach courses on nineteenth-century novelists, including Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. I have written a book on the political history of the British novel, and I co-edited of a five-volume scholarly edition of the works of Delarivier Manley, an early eighteenth-century political satirist, about whom I have also written a political biography; my research for this biography was supported by a year-long fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. I have written research articles about Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, Anne Bronte, Samuel Richardson, Charlotte Lennox, Delarivier Manley, and Jane Austen. I have recently published several research articles about the political secret history, and I am co-editing a collection of essays for Cambridge University Press, entitled Secret History in Literature, 1680-1820.