Helen Small
# Helen Small

Helen Wenda Small FBA (born 23 October 1964) is the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Merton College, Oxford. She was previously a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford.

## Early life

Small was born on 23 October 1964 in Wellington, New Zealand. Her parents are Colin McEwen Small and Wenda Mary Lavinia Heald. She attended Queen Margaret College, Wellington. She received a bachelors of arts degree in English from the Victoria University of Wellington in 1985 and a bachelor of arts with honours degree the following year. She received a Ph.D. from St Catharine's College at the University of Cambridge in 1991 and was made an honorary fellow in 2018. Her partner is Tim Gardam and she has one daughter.

## Career

Small worked as a residential fellow at St Catharine's College between 1990 and 1993, before working as a lecutrer in English at the University of Bristol between 1993 and 1996. She was a lecturer at Pembroke College, Oxford, before becoming a professor and then a Jonathan and Julia Aisbitt Fellow in English Literature between 1996 and 2018. She was the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship from 2001 to 2004. She began working as a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 2018 and as the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature.

## Published works

* Love's Madness: Medicine, the Novel, and Female Insanity, 1800-1865 (Oxford University Press, 1996)
* The Public Intellectual (editor; Blackwell, 2002)
* Literature, Science, Psychoanalysis, 1830-1970: Essays in Honour of Gillian Beer (editor, with Trudi Tate; Oxford University Press, 2003)
* The Long Life (Oxford University Press, 2007)
* The Value of the Humanities (Oxford University Press, 2013)

## Awards and recognition

* 2008: Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, The Long Life
* 2008: Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, The Long Life
* 2018: Elected Fellow of the British Academy
