Nick Groom

Nick Groom was born in 1966 and educated at Bedford Modern SchoolSchool of the Black and Red, by Andrew Underwood (1981); reset and updated 2010 (page 286) and Hertford College, Oxford where he graduated with first class honours in 1988. He was awarded a DPhil (Oxon) in 1994 with his doctoral thesis, Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Its Context, Presentation, and Reception.{{cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47257663|title=Thomas Percy's Reliques of ancient English poetry : its context, presentation, and reception|oclc=47257663 |access-date=10 January 2015}}

Groom became a lecturer in English at the University of Exeter in 1994, a Senior Lecturer in Post-Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol in 2000 and Reader in English Literature at the University of Bristol in 2003. In April 2000 he was a Visiting Associate Professor at Stanford University following which he was made Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago in October 2001.

In 2007 Groom was made Professor of English Literature at the University of Exeter and established the Exeter Centre for Literatures of Identity, Place and Sustainability in 2008. He is on the management board of the Atlantic Archipelagos Research Consortium and the Wellcome Centre for the Cultures and Environments of Health.

Groom teaches courses on the Gothic. He also used to teach what was then the only undergraduate course in Britain on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Groom’s research has ‘largely focussed on three areas; cultural formation and authenticity, including attribution studies (work on forgery and, specifically, Chatterton); national identity (Englishness and Britishness, including the Gothic); and historicist popular culture and folklore (seasons and saints’ days)’. He has recently concentrated particularly on Gothic literature. His book The Seasons was shortlisted for the Katherine Briggs Folklore Prize and was runner-up for BBC Countryfile Book of the Year 2014.

Groom wrote an essay on The Young Ones for The Cassell Book of Great British Comedy and in 2008 he nominated Rik Mayall for an Honorary Degree at the University of Exeter.{{cite web|url=http://www.exeter.ac.uk/alumnisupporters/news/featurednews/title_386133_en.html|title=Featured news - Rik Mayall - a tribute - University of Exeter|access-date=10 January 2015}} Following Mayall’s death in 2014, Groom was regularly interviewed to comment on Mayall’s unique contribution to English comedy.

Groom is a critically acclaimed author, has edited several books including four Gothic novels for Oxford University Press and a twelve volume edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare (London and Bristol: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1995),{{cite web|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/7661694?selectedversion=NBD26382672|title=The plays of William Shakespeare / with a new introduction by Nick Groom. - Version details - Trove|access-date=10 January 2015}} has contributed over seventy chapters and articles to edited collections and academic journals and has regularly reviewed books for The Financial Times, Times Higher Education and The Independent. He is currently a contributor to The Times Literary Supplement. His online essay "Let's discuss over country supper soon"{{Cite news|url=https://www.littletoller.co.uk/the-clearing/lets-discuss-over-country-supper-soon-rebekah-brooks-and-david-cameron-rural-realities-and-rustic-representations-nick-groom/|title=Nick Groom - 'Let's discuss over country supper soon' - Rural Realities and Rustic Representations - Little Toller Books|date=2013-08-22|work=Little Toller Books|access-date=2017-06-30|language=en-GB}} was used for 'Creating a Countryside', the 2017 exhibition at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park.

Groom lives on Dartmoor. He has a flock of sheep and is actively involved in local arts and music.

• {{cite book|title=The Making of Percy's Reliques|url=https://archive.org/details/makingofpercysre0000groo|url-access=registration|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1999|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-818459-1 }}
• Thomas Chatterton and Romantic culture. Published by London: Macmillan ; New York : St Martin’s Press, 1999{{cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/041880324|title=Thomas Chatterton and romantic culture|oclc=041880324 |access-date=10 January 2015}}
• Introducing Shakespeare (Cambridge: Icon, 2001), with illustrations by Piero. 176pp.{{cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/753976354|title=Introducing Shakespeare|oclc=753976354 |access-date=10 January 2015}}
• The Forger’s Shadow: How Forgery Changed the Course of Literature (London: Picador, 2002; paperback, 2003). 350pp.
• The Union Jack: The Story of the British Flag (London: Atlantic, 2006; paperback, 2007). xxii + 398pp
• The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Xviii + 164pp.{{cite web|url=http://www.concatenation.org/nfrev/groom_gothic.html|title=Review of The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction|access-date=10 January 2015}}{{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-gothic-a-very-short-introduction-9780199586790?q=nick%20groom&lang=en&cc=gb|title=The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction|last=Groom|first=Nick|date=2012-09-27|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199586790|series=Very Short Introductions|location=Oxford, New York}}
• The Seasons: An Elegy for the Passing of the Year (London: Atlantic, 2013), 400pp.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/31/seasons-nick-groom-review|title=The Seasons: an Elegy for the Passing of the Year by Nick Groom – review|author=Sarah Bakewell|work=The Guardian|date=31 December 2013 |access-date=10 January 2015}}{{Cite news|url=http://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/the-seasons/|title=The Seasons – Atlantic Books|work=Atlantic Books|access-date=2017-06-30|language=en-GB}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/an-all-weather-affair/|title=An all-weather affair – TheTLS|website=www.the-tls.co.uk|language=en-GB|access-date=2017-06-30}}
• Anniversary edition of Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (Oxford University Press, 2014){{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-castle-of-otranto-9780198704447?q=nick%20groom&lang=en&cc=gb|title=The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story|date=2014-10-09|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198704447|editor-last=Walpole|editor-first=Horace|edition=Third|series=Oxford World's Classics|location=Oxford, New York|editor-last2=Groom|editor-first2=Nick}}
• Edition of Matthew Lewis, The Monk (Oxford University Press, 2017){{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-monk-9780198704454?q=nick%20groom&lang=en&cc=gb|title=The Monk|date=2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198704454|editor-last=Lewis|editor-first=Matthew|edition=New|series=Oxford World's Classics|location=Oxford, New York|editor-last2=Groom|editor-first2=Nick}}
• Edition of Ann Radcliffe, The Italian (Oxford University Press, 2017){{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-italian-9780198704430?q=nick%20groom&lang=en&cc=gb|title=The Italian|date=2017-03-23|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198704430|editor-last=Radcliffe|editor-first=Ann|edition=New Edition, Third|series=Oxford World's Classics|location=Oxford, New York|editor-last2=Groom|editor-first2=Nick}}
• Anniversary edition of Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Oxford University Press, 2018)
• The Vampire: A New History (Yale University Press, 2018)
• Twenty-First Century Tolkien: What Middle-earth Means to Us Today (Atlantic Books, 2022)

• {{cite journal |author=McDonagh, Melanie |date=4 January 2014 |title=Eat, drink and be merry ... |department=Books |journal=The Spectator |volume=324 |issue=9671 |pages=20–21 |ref=none}} Review of The seasons.

{{reflist}}

• [http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/english/staff/groom/ Nick Groom at The University of Exeter]
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01whb8g Nick Groom on BBC Radio 6]
• {{LCAuth|n99049720|Nick Groom|8|ue}}
• [https://fah.um.edu.mo/staff/staff-english/nick-groom/ Nick Groom]

{{J. R. R. Tolkien}}

{{University of Exeter|state=collapsed}}

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Category:1966 births

Category:Living people

Category:Academics of the University of Exeter

Category:Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford

Category:People educated at Bedford Modern School

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts