Professor Fiona Stafford
About
Professor Stafford is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She works on literature of the Romantic period, especially Austen, Burns, Clare, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge, and on their literary influences on modern poetry. Her research interests also include late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century culture; Irish and Scottish literature (post 1700); Archipelagic literature and art; Place and Nature Writing (old and new); Trees, Flowers and their cultural history; Environmental Humanities; literature and the visual arts.
Her most recent book is The Brief Life of Flowers (2018). Like her acclaimed book, The Long, Long Life of Trees (2016), it draws on first hand observation, literature, art, folklore, mythology, cultural history, natural science, botany, history of medicine.
Professor Stafford's project, The Dimlight Hours, is a play based on her essay Home Front and inspired by a family wartime diary and was part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Expertise
- English literature
- Scottish and Irish literature, especially poetry
- The novel, especially Jane Austen
- Literature and the visual arts
- National and regional identity in literature
- Nature Writing
- Environmental Humanities
Selected publications
- The Brief Life of Flowers (2018)
- Jane Austen: A Brief Life (2017)
- The Long, Long Life of Trees (2016)
- Burns and Other Poets (2013)
- Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads (2013)
- Reading Romantic Poetry (2012)
- Local Attachments: The Province of Poetry (2010)
- Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice, World's Classic Edition (2004)
- Jane Austen - Emma, Penguin Edition (2003)
Media experience
Professor Stafford has considerable experience of working with media and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio. She has presented series for BBC Radio 3 on the symbolism, importance and meaning of trees, flowers and beaches. She has also contributed to the literary magazine, Archipelago.
Recent media work
- BBC Radio 3 - Hay Festival 2019
- BBC Radio 3 - Keats Goes North
- The Financial Times - Hope extends its branches
- The Times - The majesty and magic of trees
- BBC World Service - Balloons and How they Changed the World
- The Independent - The apple’s enduring sphere of influence
- The Guardian - Landmarks, shelter, air filters – trees are our friends