Duncan Wu is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 academic and biographer.

From 2000-2008, he was Professor of English Language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and Literature at St Catherine's College

St Catherine's College, Oxford

St Catherine's College, often called Catz, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its motto is Nova et Vetera...

, University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He is now a Professor in the English Department at Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

 in Washington DC. Wu joined St Catherine's in 2000 as University Lecturer, and in 2003 became Professor of English Language and Literature. Before that, he was Reader and then Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

, 1995–2000, and before that he was a Research Fellow of the British Academy

British Academy

The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

, 1991-4.

His first book, Wordsworth's reading 1770-1799, was published in 1993. His popular textbook, Romanticism: An Anthology, went to a third edition in 2005. Besides several other books about Wordsworth, he has written about contemporary British drama, the fiction of William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

, and the non-fiction of Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...

. He worked with Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years...

 on his Book of Prefaces and is a regular contributor to The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

, The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

, The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

and other British newsprints. His latest volume, William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man, was published by Oxford University Press in the UK on 20 October 2008. He is also Vice-Chairman of The Charles Lamb Society, Trustee of The Keats-Shelley Memorial Association, and a founder member and former Chairman of The Hazlitt Society.

Partial Bibliography

• Wordsworth's reading 1770-1799 (1993)
• Wordsworth's reading 1800-1815 (1995)
• Romanticism: An Anthology (1995)
• Selected Writings of William Hazlitt (9 vols., 1998)
• Making Plays (2000)
• Wordsworth: An Inner Life (2000)
• Wordsworth's Poets (2002)
• William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man (2008)