M. D. Allen, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley, where he taught
for thirty-one years. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on T. E. Lawrence's interest
in the medieval world (published as The Medievalism of Lawrence of
Arabia, Pennsylvania State U. Press, 1991), maintains an interest in Anglo-Arabian
travel literature, and reviews new English translations of Arab novels for World Literature Today.
Although not professionally a Dickensian, Professor Allen regularly taught all fourteen Dickens novels in rough rotation in relevant undergraduate courses, has contributed many articles to the Dickens Magazine as well as to the Gissing Journal, and has given presentations on both Dickens and Gissing (often in relation to each other) at conferences in France, England, Poland, and Iceland. One of his presentations, for instance, was “Great Expectations as a Significant Formative Influence on George Gissing’s The Crown of Life,” read at the Twenty-First Annual Dickens Society Symposium in Reykjavik, Iceland, in July 2016.
Professor Allen continues to read England’s greatest novelist for pleasure. In retirement, he also pursues his ambition to read the entire oeuvre of Dickens’s chief rivals, Thackeray and Trollope.
Created 21 October 2024