BAKER, William 1944-

PERSONAL: Born July 6, 1944, in Shipston-on-Stout, Warwickshire, England; naturalized U.S. citizen; son of Stanley Cohen (a publisher) and Mabel (a homemaker; maiden name, Woolf) Baker; married Rivka Frank (a nurse), November 16, 1969; children: Sharon, Karen. Education: University of Sussex, B.A. (with honors), 1966; Royal Holloway College, London, M.Phil., 1970; University of London, Ph.D., 1973; Loughborough University of Technology, postgraduate diploma in library and information studies, 1981, M.L. S., 1987. Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Collecting books and manuscripts, music, opera, walking, cricket.

ADDRESSES: Home—DeKalb, IL. Office—Department of English, University Libraries, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115-2868; fax: 815-753-2003. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: City Literary Institute, London, England, lecturer in English, 1967-71; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheva, Israel, lecturer, 1971-77; University of Kent at Canterbury, Canterbury, England, lecturer, 1977-78; West Midlands College of Higher Education, senior lecturer, 1978-85; Clifton College, Bristol, England, housemaster, 1986-89; Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, associate professor, 1989-94, professor of English, 1994—. Thurrock Technical College, lecturer, 1969-71; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, lecturer, 1973-75; Pitzer College, visiting professor, 1981-82.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America (member of executive committee of Discussion Group on Bibliographical and Textual Studies, 1994-98; chair,

1997-98), American Library Association, Society for Textual Scholarship, Bibliographical Society of America (founding chair of English and American Literature Section, 1992-93; member of council, 2002-05), British Library Association, George Eliot Fellowship, Wilkie Collins Society.

AWARDS, HONORS: British Academy, fellowship, 1978-79, grant, 1981; Ball Brothers Foundation fellow at Lilly Library, Indiana University—Bloomington, 1993; fellow, Bibliographical Society of America, 1994-95; Illinois Cooperative Collection grant, 1997; grant from American Philosophical Society, 1997; book of the year award, Choice, 2000, for The Letters of Wilkie Collins; fellow of National Endowment for the Humanities, 2002-03.

WRITINGS:

(With others) Harold Pinter, Oliver & Boyd (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1973.

Critics on George Eliot, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1973.

George Eliot and Judaism, University of Salzburg (Salzburg, Austria), 1975.

Some George Eliot Notebooks: An Edition of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library's George Eliot Holograph Notebooks, Mss 707, 708, 709, 710, 711, four volumes, University of Salzburg (Salzburg, Austria), 1976-85.

The George Eliot—George Henry Lewes Library, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1977.

The Libraries of George Eliot and G. H. Lewes, University of Victoria (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 1981.

Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice, Pan Brodie (London, England), 1985.

Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, Pan Books (London, England), 1985, revised edition, 1991.

(With John Kimber and M. B. Kinch) F. R. Leavis and Q. D. Leavis: An Annotated Bibliography, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1989.

The Early History of the London Library, Edwin Mellen (Lewiston, NY), 1992.

(Editor) The Letters of George Henry Lewes, University of Victoria (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), Volumes 1-2, 1995, Volume 3 (with new letters by George Eliot), 1999.

(Editor, with J. H. Alexander) Sir Walter Scott: Tales of a Grandfather; The History of France, Second Series, Northern Illinois University Press (DeKalb, IL), 1996.

(Editor, with J. Wolfreys) Literary Theories: A Case Study in Critical Performance, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(With Kenneth Womack) Recent Work in Critical Theory, 1989-1995: An Annotated Bibliography, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1996.

(Associate editor) New Dictionary of National Biography, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1996-2005.

(Editor, with Kenneth Womack) Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 184: Nineteenth-Century British Bibliographers and Book Collectors, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1997.

(Editor, with William M. Clarke) The Letters of Wilkie Collins, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor, with Kenneth Womack) Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 213: Pre-Nineteenth-Century British Book Collectors and Bibliographers, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.

(Editor, with Kenneth Womack) Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 201: Twentieth-Century British Book Collectors and Bibliographers, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.

(Compiler, with Kenneth Womack) Twentieth-Century Bibliography and Textual Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography, foreword by T. H. Howard-Hill Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2000.

(Editor, with Kenneth Womack) George Eliot, Felix Holt, the Radical, Broadview Press (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada), 2000.

(With John C. Ross) George Eliot: A Bibliographical History, Oak Knoll Press (London, England), 2002.

Wilkie Collins's Library: A Reconstruction, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2002.

(Editor, with Kenneth Womack) Companion to the Victorian Novel, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2002.

(Editor, with Kenneth Womack) Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion, Broadview Press (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada), 2003.

(Editor) Nineteenth-Century Travels, Explorations, and Empires: Writings from the Era of Imperial Consolidation, 1835-1910, Volume 2: North America, Pickering & Chatto (London, England), 2003.

Contributor to encyclopedias and other reference books. Contributor of more than 150 articles and reviews to periodicals, including Library Review, Style, Notes and Queries, English Studies, Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography, and Thackeray Newsletter. Editor, George Eliot—George Henry Lewes Studies, 1982—; coeditor, The Year's Work in English Studies, 2002; member of editorial advisory board, Interdisciplinary Studies, 1999—.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Editing Wilkie Collins's Letters, four volumes, for Pickering & Chatto (London, England); editing The Merchant of Venice, for "Shakespeare the Critical Tradition Series," Continuum (London, England); Harold Pinter: A Bibliographical History, British Library (London, England); Reading Shakespeare: A Study of Responses to Shakespeare.

SIDELIGHTS: William Baker once told CA: "Since the early 1970s I have been engaged in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literary study. My emphasis has been on the description, interpretation, discovery, and editing of unique and important primary documents from the period, the scholarly reconstruction from the primary evidence of the libraries (that is, the books owned) of famous writers, and the authoritative itemization of the achievements of some of the most distinguished literary figures of the period. My research has been primarily embodied in monographs, analytical and descriptive bibliographies, bibliographical histories, and more than 150 articles, as well as a large number of reviews and notes. I have also edited several scholarly volumes.

"In 1997 Nineteenth-Century British Bibliographers and Book-Collectors was published. The volume, the first of its kind, contains original essays from thirty-two scholars drawn from three continents: the Americas, Europe, and the Antipodes. This is the first to be published of three volumes that will analyze, assess, and describe the achievements of British book collectors and bibliographers. I have commissioned contributions from all over the world for what are pioneering studies, to which I have also contributed. This project allows me to combine my avocational and professional interests: book and manuscript collecting and bibliography. I am fortunate professionally to hold a joint university appointment in the English department and the university libraries. This allows me to research, teach, and acquire and maintain research materials.

"I enjoy reviewing, which I regard as a neglected art. Reviewing hones writing skills, keeps one abreast of the latest developments, and of course provides a source for books and CD-ROM discs. I try to produce around a thousand words a day on something or other. That at least is my aim, and I feel satisfied when such a goal has been achieved. I am excited by discovery, editing, transcribing documents (especially letters), reconstructing libraries, and writing about book collecting and bibliography." More recently Baker added, "Bibliographical history—represented for instance by the well-received George Eliot: A Bibliographical History—is a fascinating challenge. This work took over twenty-five years to complete. I am now engaged in a similar task on Harold Pinter. It will also be a product of more than twenty-five years of work and engagement."

In his original comments to CA, Baker also wrote: "I love classical music and opera—discovered in America. Opera was inaccessible in England: too expensive or limited primarily to London. The Chicago Lyric season is wonderful and not to be missed. Truth to me is preferable to fiction. I suppose I am a frustrated novelist and poet. The novels I have within me would be based on experience, though many wouldn't believe them! Research and writing satisfy a deep inner need for self-expression."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Choice, October, 1997, p. 291.

New York Times Book Review, February 13, 2000, Sarah Harrison Smith, review of The Letters of Wilkie Collins, p. 20.

Nineteenth-Century Literature, March, 1997, p. 565; June, 2000, review of The Letters of Wilkie Collins, p. 145.

Scottish Literary Journal, spring, 1997, pp. 23-25.

Spectator, August 7, 1999, B. Hillier, review of The Letters of Wilkie Collins, pp. 27-33.

Sunday Times (London, England), August 15, 1999, D. Grylls, review of The Letters of Wilkie Collins, pp. 6-7.

Times Literary Supplement, February 14, 1997, p. 24; October 8, 1999, J. Bowen, review of The Letters of Wilkie Collins, p. 26; October 25, 2002, p. 30.

Victorian Periodicals Review, winter, 2000, George V. Griffith, review of The Letters of George Henry Lewes, Volume 3, pp. 413-414.

Wilkie Collins Society Newsletter, summer, 1999, P. Lewis and A. Gasson, review of The Letters of Wilkie Collins, pp. 1-2.