October 2026:

Out now from @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social

You can read “Wandering Willie’s Tale”, along with two other short stories by Walter Scott – “My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror” & “The Two Drovers” – in our free ebook AS IT WAS TOLD TO ME, introduced by @profdanielcook.bsky.social 💙📚 #C19 asls.org.uk/publications...

New from Penguin Classics on 13 October: Mary Shelley’s Gothic Tales, edited and introduced by Daniel Cook (paperback, Ebook and audiobook): www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/788598... Audible: www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0GM5TSRR...

“O, wert thou in the cauld blast On yonder lea, on yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee.” #BurnsNight

Coming soon: MARY SHELLEY'S DUNDEE (art by Katy Stone)

I’m looking forward to delivering the plenary lecture at this multidisciplinary conference, which marks the tercentenary of the first publication of the world’s greatest prose satire, in 2026: www.fabula.org/actualites/1...

Meanwhile, on Zoopla: one of Sir Walter Scott’s former properties is on the market… www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/det...

Out soon from Bloomsbury #FrankensteinRetold #Frankenstein

Frankenstein: Crafting a Tale Eternal, a tie-in exhibition to celebrate the new Netflix Frankenstein, opens to the public on 17 October at The Old Selfridges Hotel in London. Love this!

Read Scott’s “The Two Drovers” in this free ebook, AS IT WAS TOLD TO ME: Three Short Stories by Sir Walter Scott, introduced by @profdanielcook.bsky.social – featuring 🪞 My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror 🐮🗡️ The Two Drovers 🐒🔥😈 Wandering Willie’s Tale 💙📚 3/3 asls.org.uk/publications...

You can read “Wandering Willie’s Tale”, along with two other short stories by Walter Scott – “My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror” & “The Two Drovers” – in our free ebook AS IT WAS TOLD TO ME, introduced by @profdanielcook.bsky.social 💙📚 asls.org.uk/publications...

THE GULLIVER TRILOGY #1 Gulliver’s Travels (The Norton Library) #2 The Cambridge Companion to Gulliver’s Travels #3 Gulliver’s Afterlives (Bloomsbury)

Out soon: www.bloomsbury.com/us/gullivers...

“…my habitual residence was on the blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay, near Dundee…” @profdanielcook.bsky.social examines why Scotland mattered so much to Mary Shelley, & considers Shelley’s position in the Scottish Gothic tradition #FrankensteinDay #Frankenstein www.nls.uk/papercut/mar...

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” Orwell's Animal Farm was first published #otd 80 years ago

“And what I write I cast upon the stream, / To swim or sink - I have had at least my dream.” - Byron, ‘Don Juan’ (Canto XIV)

“We are all subjected to two distinct natures in the same person. I myself have suffered grievously in that way.” Hogg’s Scottish Gothic masterpiece was first published #otd in 1824:

You’re never too old for a lovely certificate surprise, are you?

Having a great time at my first ever Defoe Society conference (aka DefCon) in Lichfield. Pictured: the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum.

quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur

I’ll be spending the rest of this blissful morning in the National Library of Scotland, followed by my first ever trip to the Royal Society of Edinburgh this afternoon 🚆📚

I’ll be delivering the Nora Bartlett Memorial Lecture for the Scottish branch of the Jane Austen Society. Title: “Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and the Gothic Imagination”. Date: 18 October. Place: Pitbauchlie Hotel, Dunfermline.

As Dundee is a city of creativity and design our Humanities team is launching a brand-new Taught Postgraduate course this September: Writing for the Creative Economies (MLitt, part time). For more information and to apply visit: www.dundee.ac.uk/postgraduate.... Spread the word, mes amis!

Meet Mary Ann Baxter, a major philanthropist and co-founder of University College, Dundee, the forerunner of the University of Dundee. The deed of endowment stated that the college should promote "the education of persons of both sexes and the study of Science, Literature and the Fine Arts". Legend.

“Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” “He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.” Jonathan Swift #StPatricksDay

“Let us live for each other and for happiness; let us seek peace in our dear home, near the inland murmur of streams, and the gracious waving of trees, the beauteous vesture of earth, and sublime pageantry of the skies. Let us leave ‘life’, that we may live.” Mary Shelley, The Last Man (1826)

Did you know that Gulliver has appeared in Doctor Who and Star Trek? As my book Gulliver's Afterlives reveals, the fantastical voyager has been busy for 300 years. I'll be presenting a paper in the Sheffield Hallam/Bangor Early Modern Seminar on 11 March (online). www.bangor.ac.uk/languages-li...

Interested in Literary Studies? Read free issues of The Shandean, JLCDS, Essays in Romanticism and The Byron Journal via the LUP website: bit.ly/FREE-ISSUES-LUP @lsternetrust.bsky.social @bars.bsky.social @davidbolt13.bsky.social @profdanielcook.bsky.social‬ @asecsoffice.bsky.social

Barely a week to-go before the annual Romancing the Gothic charity teachathon! 15th February - it runs all day so people can join from any timezone for at least some of it Sessions recorded so you don't miss out THIRTEEN (13) amazing talks and workshops www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1141089402...

“In time we hate that which we often fear” #ShakespeareSunday

FREE ACCESS to my article 'Byron’s Scottish Poetry' in The Byron Journal available here: www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense” (Elizabeth Bennet) #PrideandPrejudiceDay

“Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west, The drift is driving sairly; Sae loud and shrill’s I hear the blast, I’m sure it’s winter fairly.” #BurnsNight2025

Byron declared that he was ‘half a Scot by birth, & bred / A whole one’. In what ways did Byron engage with a Scottish poetic heritage, if at all? – @profdanielcook.bsky.social, “Byron’s Scottish Poetry”, The Byron Journal 50/1, 2022 via @projectmuse.bsky.social 2/4 muse.jhu.edu/pub/105/arti...

“pay no worship to the garish sun” #ShakespeareSunday #ScottishWinters

“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me” #ShakespeareSunday

“Now mirk December’s dowie face Glowrs owre the rigs wi’ sour grimace, While, thro’ his minimum o’ space,‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍The bleer-ee’d sun, Wi’ blinkin’ light, and stealing pace,‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍ ‍‍His race doth run.” Robert Fergusson

“There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game” #Shakespeare #BoxingDay

My Away Message is now… on! 🔕

Casually playing a games app I’ve just downloaded (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) and look who immediately pops up… I’m starting to think she’s haunting me, so, just in case… hi, Mary!

“The weight of this sad time we must obey” #ShakespeareSunday