Donald W. Nichol

Donald W. Nichol studied English at Carleton University in Ottawa (BA 1976, MA 1978) before completing his Ph.D. on Pope at Edinburgh University in 1984. He taught English literature at Memorial University from 1978 to 2018 where he introduced courses in foundlingism, Scottish literature, and songwriting. He also taught as a sessional lecturer at Concordia, Edinburgh, Open (Edinburgh and York UK), and Trent Universities. He is now a Professor Emeritus.

He started as a literary journalist in 1978 and has since published about 50 scholarly articles in American, British, Canadian, and French journals. His more than 100 reviews and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Antigonish Review, The Sunday Post of Canada, and The Times Higher Education Supplement. He has served on the editorial boards of Books in Canada, Lumen, NLS (Newfoundland & Labrador Studies), and Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada/Cahiers de la Société bibliographique du Canada. Five of his feature commentaries have appeared in The Times Literary Supplement.

His books include: Pope’s Literary Legacy (Oxford, 1992); Lumen, vol. XIII (Edmonton, 1994); TransAtlantic Crossings I: Eighteenth-Century Explorations (St. John’s, 1995); The New Foundling Hospital for Wit, 3 vols (London, 2006); TransAtlantic Crossings II: Eighteenth-Century Sexuality & Textuality (St. John’s, 2006); Lumen, vol. XXXI (Montréal, 2012); and Anniversary Essays on Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (Toronto, 2016)

Memorial University presented him with the President’s Award for Outstanding Research (1993) and the Dean of Arts Award for Distinguished Scholarship (2013). He organized two national conferences of the Canadian Society for 18th-Century Studies (1992 and 2010). He taught three times at Memorial’s campus in Harlow UK with his wife, Mary Walsh, between 2008 and 2014, and once with his colleague, Dr. Jamie Skidmore, in 2018. He continues to publish locally and internationally.

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