Stott, Rebecca 1964–

(Rebecca Kathleen Stott)

PERSONAL:

Born September 24, 1964, in Cambridge, England; daughter of Roger Morton Stott and Phoebe East; children: Jacob Morrish, Hannah Morrish, Kezia Morrish. Education: York University, B.A., 1986, M.A. 1987, Ph.D., 1990. Hobbies and other interests: Rowing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Cambridge, England. Office—Department of English, Anglia Polytechnic University, East Road, Cambridge CB2 1PT, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

York University, York, England, lecturer in English, 1989-91; Leeds University, Leeds, England, lecturer in English, 1991-93; Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge, lecturer in English, 1993, senior lecturer, 1994-99, reader in Victorian literature, 1999-2000, department head, 2000-04, professor of English, 2004—, codirector of Speak-Write Project; Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, affiliated scholar in department of history and philosophy of science, 2001; University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, professor of literature and creative writing, 2007—. Radio 4, England, broadcaster; presenter of history of science programs.

MEMBER:

Royal Society of Arts.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Scholar, Leverhulme, 1996-97, British Academy, 2004—.

WRITINGS:

The Fabrication of the Late-Victorian Femme Fatale: The Kiss of Death, Macmillan (Basingstoke, England), 1992.

(Editor and author of introduction) Tennyson, Longman (New York, NY), 1996.

Darwin and the Barnacle: The Story of One Tiny Creature and History's Most Spectacular Scientific Breakthrough, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2003.

Theatres of Glass: The Woman Who Brought the Sea to the City, Short Books, 2003.

Oyster, Reaktion (London, England), 2004.

Ghostwalk (novel), Spiegel & Grau (New York, NY), 2007.

"SPEAK-WRITE" SERIES; AND SERIES EDITOR

(With Peter Chapman) Grammar and Writing, Longman (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Anna Snaith and Rick Rylance) Making Your Case: A Practical Guide to Essay Writing, Longman (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Tory Young and Cordelia Bryan) Speaking Your Mind: Oral Presentation and Seminar Skills, Longman (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Simon Avery) Writing with Style, Longman (New York, NY), 2001.

Contributor to books, including The New Woman in Fiction and Fact, edited by Chris Willis and Angelique Richardson, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1999; Transactions between Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Roger Luckhurst and Josephine McDonagh, Manchester University Press, 2000; and The Politics of Pleasure, edited by Stephen Regan, Open University Press, 2002.

Also contributor to periodicals, including Feminist Review, Conradian, Journal of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identity, Journal of Victorian Culture, and Gothic Studies.

Ghostwalk has been translated into fifteen different languages including, Russian, Serbian, and Chinese.

SIDELIGHTS:

Educator Rebecca Stott is a professor of English whose focus is Victorian literature. In addition to teaching at Anglia Polytechnic University, where she heads the English department and helps direct the school's Speak-Write skills-building program, Stott is also the author of the books The Fabrication of the Late-Victorian Femme Fatale: The Kiss of Death and Darwin and the Barnacle: The Story of One Tiny Creature and History's Most Spectacular Scientific Breakthrough. In keeping with the focus of the latter book, Stott is the author and presenter of a program on the history of science broadcast on England's Radio 4.

Published in 1992, The Fabrication of the Late-Victorian Femme Fatale traces the roles of various female characters found in classic fiction, among them Bram Stoker's Dracula, H. Ryder Haggard's She, and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Stott references the theories of many contemporary feminist critics while exposing the connection between these well-known works of fiction due to their treatment of lead female roles. As one example, Stott notes the similar scene found in both She and Dracula, as large groups of men surround and seemingly chase back a monstrous female character. Chris Baldick, reviewing The Fabrication of the Late-Victorian Femme Fatale in the Times Literary Supplement, complimented Stott's work, writing that she scans "the novels not just for evidences of the misogynist ‘framing’ of women characters, but for the complications and ironies of these subtler narratives, in which the framing process itself is called into question. This is an impressively intelligent work of investigation, which makes good use of late Victorian imperial history and criminology."

In Darwin and the Barnacle, Stott focuses on the life and work of biologist Charles Darwin during the years between 1846 and 1854. By now Darwin had already written a draft of the work that would later be published as On the Origin of Species. However, he believed that before he made his theories known, he needed to establish himself as a researcher. Due to an early interest in barnacles gained during his medical studies, Darwin decided this would make an excellent area of study, and he spent the next eight years immersed in the study of these tiny creatures. His work resulted in a four-volume, groundbreaking study of these crustaceans.

Noting Stott's reliance on varied source material, including Darwin's letters, a Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the author "tells her story beautifully, but she takes a while to get going and occasionally dallies on tangential topics just when one wants to know what happened next." Frederick R. Schram, writing in Nature, criticized Stott for what he considered errors and omissions and maintained that she "seems to have missed the point about the barnacle years. This was when Darwin really came to grips with variation in species." In contrast, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contributor Fred Bortz found the biography "rich in story and deft writing" and maintained that the work would find appreciative readers among those interested in "history, science or biography." A contributor to Kirkus Reviews enjoyed the personal story of an amazing man that is recounted in Darwin and the Barnacle, writing that "Stott adroitly covers the events of the day, books, fads, and the gossip on everyone's lips." In closing, the reviewer dubbed the book "well written and richly detailed."

In Ghostwalk, a historically based thriller, Stott expands upon the fact that seventeenth-century scientific genius Isaac Newton was also an alchemist in the Hermetic tradition, though that was not widely acknowledged during his lifetime. Stott takes advantage of papers attributed to Newton and to general knowledge regarding alchemists and their behavior during his day in order to weave a mysterious tale. At the start of the story, Newton's biographer, Elizabeth Vogelsang, dies, leaving her work incomplete. Her son then hires on Lydia Brooke to finish the research his mother began and to write the resulting biography of Newton. However, nothing is as simple as it seems, as the son, now married, is also Brooke's former lover. In addition, Brooke uncovers a series of deaths that appear to be linked to similar tragedies during Newton's time, and Stott also succeeds in weaving in protests by animal rights activists. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly remarked that "British historian Stott makes a stunning debut with this hypnotic and intelligent thriller." Francine Levitov, writing in Kliatt, commented that "Stott augments historical facts with supernatural possibilities, providing an unusual backdrop to her modern-day literary mystery." USA Today reviewer Carol Memmott praised Stott's work, stating that "past and present are exquisitely connected in Stott's wonderfully written Ghostwalk."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2003, review of Darwin and the Barnacle: The Story of One Tiny Creature and History's Most Spectacular Scientific Breakthrough, p. 598.

Kliatt, September, 2007, Francine Levitov, review of Ghostwalk, p. 50.

Nature, April 3, 2003, Frederick R. Schram, review of Darwin and the Barnacle, p. 472.

Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, PA), August 17, 2003, Fred Bortz, review of Darwin and the Barnacle.

Publishers Weekly, April 21, 2003, review of Darwin and the Barnacle, p. 47; February 26, 2007, review of Ghostwalk, p. 53.

Times Literary Supplement, September 3, 1993, Chris Baldick, review of The Fabrication of the Late-Victorian Femme Fatale: The Kiss of Death, p. 20.

USA Today, June 7, 2007, "Ghostly Thrills Set in Motion," p. 6.