Dr Anna Mercer
Senior Lecturer
School of English, Communication and Philosophy
- MercerA1@cardiff.ac.uk
- +44 29208 75410
- John Percival Building, Room 2.05, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU
- Available for postgraduate supervision
Overview
I am a Romanticist, interested in literary relationships, women writers, and manuscript studies (1770-1830). My main area of research is the works of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
I am involved in the following projects alongside my research and teaching as a Lecturer at Cardiff:
- I work with Keats House in Hampstead. I co-curated their current exhibition 'Young Romantics in the City' (funded by Innovation for All in collaboration with Cardiff University), and I support their events programme. https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/young-romantics-in-the-city-exhibition
- Board of Directors, Keats-Shelley Association of America (K-SAA).
- Advisory Board, The Shelley Conference 2024.
- Committee Member, 'The Year of Gothic Women' Conference, Dundee, 2023.
- International Collaborator, Inter-University Center for the Study of Romanticism (CISR).
Former appointments:
- Lead Organiser of Cardiff BookTalk 2020-22. https://cardiffbooktalk.wordpress.com
- Director of Communications for the Keats-Shelley Association of America (K-SAA) 2017-22.
- Communications Officer for the British Association of Romantic Studies (BARS) 2019-23.
- Blog Editor for the British Association for Romantic Studies (BARS) 2015-2019.
- Director, BARS Digital Events series 2020-22. https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?cat=24
Publication
2023
- Mercer, A. 2023. “Something to say upon women’s inconstancy”: Fickleness and fleeting infatuation in the Shelleys and beyond. English Studies 104(3), pp. 460-477. (10.1080/0013838X.2023.2185998)
2020
- Mercer, A. 2020. Mary Shelley's Italian scenes. In: Braida, A. ed. Mary Shelley and Europe: Essays in honour of Jean de Palacio., Vol. 55. Studies In Comparative Literature Modern Humanities Research Association, pp. 90-102., (10.2307/j.ctv1wsgr9h.14)
2019
- Mercer, A. 2019. The collaborative literary relationship of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. New York, USA: Routledge. (10.4324/9780429297892)
- Mercer, A. 2019. 'Writing reading & walking': The Shelleys in 2017. Keats-Shelley Review 33(1), pp. 18-24. (10.1080/09524142.2019.1611265)
2017
- Mercer, A. 2017. Rethinking the Shelleys' collaborations in manuscript. Keats-Shelley Review 31(1), pp. 49-65. (10.1080/09524142.2017.1297089)
2016
- Mercer, A. 2016. Beyond Frankenstein: the collaborative literary relationship of Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley. Keats-Shelley Review 30(1), pp. 80-85. (10.1080/09524142.2016.1145937)
2013
- Mercer, A. 2013. ‘What aspect wears the soul within?’: Sara Coleridge and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poetical connections, and the image of childhood. Coleridge Bulletin 41(Summer), pp. 85-95.
Articles
- Mercer, A. 2023. “Something to say upon women’s inconstancy”: Fickleness and fleeting infatuation in the Shelleys and beyond. English Studies 104(3), pp. 460-477. (10.1080/0013838X.2023.2185998)
- Mercer, A. 2019. 'Writing reading & walking': The Shelleys in 2017. Keats-Shelley Review 33(1), pp. 18-24. (10.1080/09524142.2019.1611265)
- Mercer, A. 2017. Rethinking the Shelleys' collaborations in manuscript. Keats-Shelley Review 31(1), pp. 49-65. (10.1080/09524142.2017.1297089)
- Mercer, A. 2016. Beyond Frankenstein: the collaborative literary relationship of Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley. Keats-Shelley Review 30(1), pp. 80-85. (10.1080/09524142.2016.1145937)
- Mercer, A. 2013. ‘What aspect wears the soul within?’: Sara Coleridge and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poetical connections, and the image of childhood. Coleridge Bulletin 41(Summer), pp. 85-95.
Book sections
- Mercer, A. 2020. Mary Shelley's Italian scenes. In: Braida, A. ed. Mary Shelley and Europe: Essays in honour of Jean de Palacio., Vol. 55. Studies In Comparative Literature Modern Humanities Research Association, pp. 90-102., (10.2307/j.ctv1wsgr9h.14)
Books
- Mercer, A. 2019. The collaborative literary relationship of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. New York, USA: Routledge. (10.4324/9780429297892)
Research
My current research projects include:
- Editing the selected works of Mary Shelley for Oxford University Press (Series Editor: Professor Seamus Perry).
- Writing three articles, ‘The Shelleys, Beatrice, and the pernicious mistakes of women’ for Romanticism on the Net; ‘Collaboration, the first Frankenstein of 1818, and the Shelleys’ creative processes behind History of a Six Weeks’ Tour' for Nineteenth Century Literature in Transition: the 1810s ed. Emma Mason (Cambridge University Press); ‘Mary Shelley’ in Percy Shelley in Context ed. Ross Wilson (Cambridge University Press).
- Writing a piece for Romanticism on a new discovery relating to Sara Coleridge in the Keats House Archives.
- Co-editing with Professor Cian Duffy the Shelleys' History of a Six Weeks' Tour for Oxford University Press.
- A collaborative project with Professor Nora Crook and Dr Bysshe Coffey to edit and publish the only notebook containing Percy Bysshe Shelley's hand that has not appeared in facsimile print edition: MSS 13,290 in the Library of Congress.
- Co-editing a special issue of Romanticism with Dr Amanda Blake Davis with papers from The Shelley Conference 2022.
Teaching
I have taught on the following modules
Undergraduate teaching:
- 'Bluestockings, Britannia and Unsex'd Females: Women in Public Life 1770-1800'
- 'Fictive Histories/Historical Fictions'
- 'Jane Austen in Context'
- 'Romanticism, Politics, Aesthetics'
- 'Second-generation Romantic Poets'
- 'Introduction to Romantic Poetry'
- 'Romantic Circles: Collaboration, Radicalism and Creativity 1770–1830'
- Dissertation
Postgraduate teaching:
- 'Narrative and Nation: Politics, Gender, History, 1780-1830'
- Research Methods
- Dissertation
Biography
I joined ENCAP in October 2018. I have previously taught in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York.
I completed my AHRC-funded PhD at the University of York in 2017. I have also studied at Jesus College, University of Cambridge and the University of Liverpool.
Honours and awards
- Innovation for All Project Grant 2022, working with Keats House Museum.
- Keats-Shelley Essay Prize (Runner-up) 2015 for the essay ‘Beyond Frankenstein’.
- Awarded AHRC Travel Award Scheme grant to travel to the USA to study manuscripts in Washington D.C. and New York City, October/November 2015.
- Recipient of BARS Stephen Copley Postgraduate Research Award 2015 for the same research trip as above.
- Recipient of a full AHRC Doctoral Award.
- Essay entitled ‘Shelley and Mary in 1816’ shortlisted for the Keats-Shelley Prize 2012.
- Awarded Jesus College University of Cambridge Graduate Scholarship 2012.
Speaking engagements
Recent and forthcoming
- “Women and Inconstancy in Shelley’s ‘The Bride of Modern Italy’ and Valperga”, The Year of Gothic Women Conference, University of Dundee, 29-31 August 2023.
- ‘Young Romantics: Romantic Localities’, public lecture at Keats House with Professor Nicholas Roe,18 May 2023.
- ‘The Keats House Collections’, invited speaker at the Keats-Shelley House, Rome, 2 February 2023.
- ‘Shelley’s Beatrice Cenci as Romantic Heroine – Then and Now’, invited speaker at the P. B. Shelley’s Contemporaneity/ies conference, Bologna and Ravenna, 20-22 October 2022.
- ‘Teaching Gothic Women’, Roundtable at BARS/NASSR Conference ‘New Romanticisms’, Edge Hill University, 2-5 August 2022.
- ‘Mary Shelley and a new History of a Six Weeks’ Tour (1817 in 2022)’, BARS/NASSR Conference ‘New Romanticisms’, Edge Hill University, 2-5 August 2022.
- ‘The Shelleys in Lerici’, invited speaker at the Shelley200 public festival in Lerici, Italy, June 2022.
- ‘The Shelleys’, invited speaker at Research Seminar, Lancaster Words (online) 25 February, 2022.
- ‘Mary Shelley, John Keats and Romantic Circles’, Keynote Address, The Keats Bicentenary Conference 2022, London, 20-22 May 2022.
- ‘Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley as collaborators’, invited research talk at the Romanticism Research Seminar, Balliol College, University of Oxford, 9 November 2021.
- ‘Romantic interaction in London: Hazlitt, Keats and the Shelleys’, invited speaker at The Hazlitt Day School, London, September 2021.
Committees and reviewing
- Reviewer of articles submitted for publication in The ESSE Messenger (2023).
- Reviewer of articles submitted for publication in The Keats-Shelley Review (2020).
- Reviewer of articles submitted for publication in the European Romantic Review (2020).
- Reviewer of papers submitted for publication in the American Journal of Political Science (2017).
- Blog Editor/Communications Officer, British Association for Romantic Studies Executive Committee (2016-present).
- Editor of the University of York poetry journal Eborakon (2015-2017). Assistant Editor and founding team member (2013-2015).
Supervisions
Romantic literature, in particular the writings of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley.