Look Closer

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College. His books include Becoming Dickens, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, The Story of Alice, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award, and Metamorphosis. He writes regularly for publications including The Times, the Literary Review and the Spectator. Radio and television appearances include Start the Week and The Culture Show and he has also acted as the historical consultant on TV adaptations of Jane Eyre, Emma, Great Expectations, the BBC drama series Dickensian and both of the Enola Holmes feature films for Netflix. He has judged the Booker Prize and the Baillie Gifford Prize, and in 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Reading Look Closer is akin to wandering through an art gallery with an expert on painterly detail by your side: you see familiar shapes afresh and are introduced to new artists along the way