DOODY, Margaret (Anne) 1939-

PERSONAL: Born September 21, 1939, in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada; daughter of Hubert (an Anglican minister) and Anne (a social worker; maiden name, Cornwall) Doody. Education: Dalhousie University, B.A. (with honors), 1960; Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, B.A. (with first-class honors), 1962, D.Phil., 1968. Politics: "Much the same as Dr. Johnson's." Religion: Anglican. Hobbies and other interests: Detective stories, children's books, theater, travel.

ADDRESSES: Home—Princeton, NJ. Office—Department of English, McCosh 22, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.

CAREER: University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, instructor, 1962-64, assistant professor of English, 1968-69; University of Wales, University College, Swansea, lecturer in English, 1969-76; University of California—Berkeley, visiting associate professor, 1976-77, associate professor of English, 1977-80; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, professor of English, beginning 1980.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America (member of eighteenth-century panel).

AWARDS, HONORS: Guggenheim fellowship, 1978; American Philosophical Society research grant, 1982; Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, British Academy, 1986, for The Daring Muse: Augustan Poetry Reconsidered.

WRITINGS:

nonfiction

A Natural Passion: A Study of the Novels of Samuel Richardson, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1974.

The Daring Muse: Augustan Poetry Reconsidered, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1985.

Frances Burney: The Life in the Works, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 1988.

(Editor, with Peter Sabor) Frances Burney, Cecilia, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

(Coeditor) Samuel Richardson: Tercentenary Essays, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

(Associate editor) The Clarissa Project, AMS Press (New York, NY), 1990-1996.

(Coeditor) Frances Burney, The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(Coeditor) Jane Austen, Catharine and Other Writings, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor) Frances Burney, Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 1994.

The True Story of the Novel, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 1996.

(Coeditor) L. M. Montgomery, The Annotated Anne of Green Gables, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

detective novels

Aristotle Detective, Bodley Head (London, England), 1978, Harper (New York, NY), 1980.

The Alchemists, Bodley Head (London, England), 1980.

Aristotle and the Secrets of Life, Century (London, England), 2003.

other

(With Florian Stuber and John Sgueglia) Clarissa: The Encounter (one-act play; based on Samuel Richardson's Clarissa), first produced in New York, NY, at Circle Repertory Lab Theater, 1983.

(With Florian Stuber) Clarissa: A Theater Work, Part One, first produced as three-act play in New York, NY, at Douglas Fairbanks Theater, 1984, produced as two-act play in New York, NY, at West End Theater, 1984.

Contributor to books, including The State of the Language, edited by Christopher Ricks and Leonard Michaels, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1980; and No Alternative: The Prayer Book Controversy, edited by David Martin and Peter Mullen, Basil Blackwell (Boston, MA), 1981; author of introduction to Pamela, by Samuel Richardson, edited by Peter Sabor, Penguin (New York, NY), 1981. Contributor to Times Literary Supplement. Advisor to Studies in English Literature.

Aristotle Detective has been translated into Italian, French, and German.

SIDELIGHTS: Margaret Doody once told CA: "I find that the academic life and the writing of detective stories mesh quite nicely. I look forward to escaping from the eighteenth century from time to time (it seems so very modern to me) and going back to ancient Greece with Aristotle, my Sherlock Holmes. A recent venture into drama has convinced me that I want to stay there. I have several plans for plays. I am very grateful for the chance of working with professional actors under the aegis of Circle Rep Directors' Lab in May, 1983."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Christian Science Monitor, October 21, 1986.

Times Literary Supplement, November 10, 1978; April 25, 1980; March 14, 1986; June 13, 2003, Roderick Beaton, review of Aristotle and the Secrets of Life.*