Dr Helen Williams

Helen’s research interests broadly lie in book history and literary heritage studies, and she is particularly interested in heritage collaboration. 

SELECTED RESEARCH PROJECTS

1. UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, 'Towards a Global History of Women in Book Production, 1600-1900', 2025-2029.
2. British Academy-Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) Knowledge Frontiers Grant, 'Pandemic Artefacts', 2025.
3. Katharine F. Pantzer Research Fellowship, a Bibliographical Society Major Grant, ‘Women in the Book Trades, 1695-1830’, 2024-2025.
4. British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Bodleian Library Fellowship, ‘Women in the Book Trades, 1695-1830’, 2024.
5. British Academy Innovation Fellowship, ‘Communicating Women’s Work in the Historical Archive’, 2022-2024.
6. [with David Rudrum PI,] UKRI-AHRC Covid-19 Rapid Response Grant: UK Literary Heritage Sites and Covid-19: Measuring Impact, Enhancing Resilience, and Learning Lessons, 2020-2021.
7. British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award, Novel Impressions: Literature and the Hand-Press in the Eighteenth Century, 2019-2021.
8. [with Clark Lawlor PI, Allan Ingram and Leigh Wetherall-Dickson,] Leverhulme Trust Research Grant, Writing Doctors: Representation and Medical Personality ca. 1660-1832, 2018-2021.
9. [with Mary Newbould,] AHRC Standard Grant, Sterne Digital Library, 2018-2021.
10. [with Richard Terry PI,] British Academy Small Grant, ‘Editing John Cleland’s Letters’, 2016.

BOOKS and a DATASET

1. [with David Rudrum,] Literary Heritage: Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic (London: Routledge, 2025) [open access].
2. [with Peter Sabor and Richard Terry, eds,] The Cambridge Edition of the Correspondence of John Cleland (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2024).
3. Laurence Sterne and the Eighteenth-Century Book (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2021).
4. [with M-C. Newbould, eds,] Laurence Sterne and Sterneana (Cambridge: Cambridge Digital Library, 2019).
5. [with Richard Terry, eds,] Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland (Peterborough: Broadview, 2018).
6. [with Patrick Wildgust, eds,] A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, by Laurence Sterne, illus. by Martin Rowson (Coxwold: Shandy Hall Press, 2018).

EDITED COLLECTIONS and SPECIAL ISSUES of JOURNALS

1. [with Allan Ingram and Clark Lawlor, eds,] Myth and (Mis)information: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2024).
2. [with Ashleigh Blackwood and Allan Ingram, eds,] Writing Doctors and Writing Health in the Long Eighteenth Century, Special Issue of Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 46.1 (2023).
3. [with M-C. Newbould, eds,] Adaptation and Digitisation in the Long Eighteenth Century: Sterneana and Beyond, Special Issue of 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, 28 (2023).
4. [with M-C. Newbould, Paul Goring, and Brian Michael Norton, eds,] A Festschrift in Honour of Peter de Voogd, Special Issue of the Shandean, 33 (2022).

JOURNAL ARTICLES and BOOK CHAPTERS

1. [with David Rudrum,] ‘Creative Contemporary Arts Programming in the Literary Heritage Sector amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic: Before, During …, and After?’ in The Routledge Handbook of Heritage and Creative Practice, ed. by Anna Powell, Nick Cass, and Sarina Wakefield (London: Routledge, 2025), 93-107.
2. ‘Elizabeth Nutt: Print Trade Matriarch’, in The People of Print: Eighteenth-Century England, ed. by Rachel Stenner, Adam James Smith, and Kaley Kramer (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2025), 10-17.
3. ‘Book Design’, in Agrégation anglais 2026: Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, ed. by Anne-Laure Fortin-Tournès and Anne Rouhette (Paris: Éditions Ellipses, 2025), 31-44.
4. ‘“It’s ok to be closed”: Harnessing the Power of Nature, Enhancing Resilience and Learning Lessons from the Literary Heritage Sector’, in Creative Approaches to Wellbeing: The Pandemic and Beyond, ed. by Karen Gray and Victoria Tischler (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2024), 134-152.
5. ‘Constantia Grierson’s Ghost and the Problem of Posthumous Print’, in Gender and the Book Trades, ed. by Elise Watson and Jessica Farrell-Jobst, Library of the Written Word (Leiden: Brill, 2024), 150-169.
6. ‘Bodies of Type: Tristram Shandy in the Bagnio’, Shandean 34 (2024), 85-106.
7. ‘Katrin Moye’s Filthy Trash: Interview with the Artist’, Shandean 34 (2024), 104-114.
8. [with Mary Newbould,] ‘Literary Adaptation and Digital Humanities: Laurence Sterne and Sterneana’, Romanticism and the Digital Humanities, ed. by Jennifer Reed, Special Issue of Studies in Romanticism 63.3 (2024), 273-308.
9. ‘Extra-Illustration and the Seduction of a “Standard” Text: James Comerford’s Erotic Books’, in The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century British Novel and the Arts, ed. by Jakub Lipski and M-C. Newbould (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2024), 433-459.
10. [with Clark Lawlor], Introduction, Myth and Misinformation: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2024).
11. ‘Mislabelling and the Medical Printer-Publisher: Demystifying the Ephemera of Elizabeth Rane Cox (1765-1841)’, in Myth and Misinformation: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture (Manchester: Manchester UP, 2024).
12. ‘Craftivism and Cottonian Bindings: “The Handiwork of Greta Hall”’, New Approaches to Critical Bibliography, Special Issue of Criticism 64.3 (2023), 351-368.
13. [with M-C. Newbould,] Introduction to the Special Feature: Fitting Things? Adaptation, Eighteenth-Century Afterlives, and Digital Cultures’, Adaptation and Digitisation in the Long Eighteenth Century: Sterneana and Beyond, Special Issue of 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era 28 (2023), 3-22.
14. ‘Laurence Sterne and Women’s Writing: Elizabeth Bonhôte, Jane Timbury, and Miss Street’, Adaptation and Digitisation in the Long Eighteenth Century: Sterneana and Beyond, Special Issue of 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era 28 (2023), 44-62.
15. [with Ashleigh Blackwood], Writing Doctors and Writing Health in the Long Eighteenth Century, Special Issue of Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 46.1 (2023), 3-20.
16. ‘Family Planning and the Long Eighteenth-Century Pocket Book’, Writing Doctors and Writing Health in the Long Eighteenth Century, Special Issue of Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 46.1 (2023), 113-133.
17. ‘Autopathography and the Bramine’s Journal’, Shandean 33 (2022), 217-236.
18. ‘Printing, Publishing and Pocket Book Compiling: Ann Fisher’s Hidden Labour in the Newcastle Book Trade’, in Print Culture, Agency and Regionality in the Hand Press Era, ed. by Rachel Stenner, Adam James Smith and Kaley Kramer (London: Palgrave, 2022), 93-116. 
19. ‘Communing with the Fictional Dead: Grave Tourism and the Sentimental Novel’, in British Sociability in the European Enlightenment: Cultural Practices and Personal Encounters, ed. by Mascha Hansen and Sebastien Domsch (London: Palgrave, 2021), 41-62.
20. ‘The Good Humour Club or Doctors’ Club and Sterne’s Political Romance’, Shandean 31 (2020), 138-155.
21. ‘The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan’, in How to Teach a Play: Essential Exercises for Popular Plays, ed. by Miriam Chirico and Kelly Younger, Methuen Drama (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 110-13.
22. [with Richard Terry,] ‘Reading Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure Against Cleland’s Life and Letters’, Fanny Hill Now, ed. by Nicholas Nace and Clorinda Donato, Special Issue of Eighteenth-Century Life 43 (2019), 29-37.
23. Introduction, The Lambton Worm (Durham: Corvus Works, 2019). 
24. [with Siv Gøril Brandtzæg and M-C. Newbould,] ‘Advertising Sterne’s Novels in Eighteenth-Century Newspapers’, Shandean 27 (2016), 27-57.
25. ‘Alas, poor YORICK! Sterne’s Iconography of Mourning’, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 28 (2015-6), 313-344.
26. ‘Sterne’s Manicules: Hands, Handwriting and Authorial Property in Tristram Shandy’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 36 (2013), 209-223.
27. [with Richard Terry,] ‘John Cleland and the Marquis of Rockingham: Two New Letters’, Notes & Queries 61 (2014), 441-444.
28. [with Richard Terry,] ‘The Delaval Family’s Patronage of Christopher Smart: New Evidence’, Notes & Queries 60 (2013), 95-97.
29. [with Richard Terry,] ‘Christopher Smart and the Lord Crewe Trust: New Letters and Details’, Notes & Queries 60 (2013), 97-100.
30. [with Richard Terry,] ‘John Cleland and the Delavals’, Review of English Studies 64 (2013), 795-818. 
31. ‘“Looking and reading simultaneously”: APFEL on Tristram Shandy’, Shandean 23 (2012), 129-135. 

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Laurence Sterne and the Eighteenth-Century Book, Williams, H. 1 Apr 2021
• The Cambridge Edition of the Correspondence of John Cleland, Sabor, P., Terry, R., Williams, H. 13 Jun 2024
• Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, Williams, H., Terry, R. 23 Jul 2018
• Myth and (Mis)information: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture , Ingram, A., Lawlor, C., Williams, H. 25 Jun 2024
• Constantia Grierson’s Ghost and the Problem of Posthumous Print, Williams, H. 15 Jan 2025, Gender and the Book Trades, Leiden, Netherlands, Brill
• Writing Doctors and Writing Health in the Long Eighteenth Century, Blackwood, A., Williams, H. 1 Mar 2023, In: Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
• Introduction to the Special Feature: Fitting Things? Adaptation, Eighteenth-Century Afterlives, and Digital Cultures, Newbould, M., Williams, H. 14 Apr 2023, 1650-1850, Lewisburg, US, Bucknell University Press

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• WRITING DOCTORS:SELF-REPRESENTATION AND REPUTATION AMONG MEDICAL MEN AND WOMEN IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, Lawlor, C. (Principal Investigator), Williams, H. (Co Investigator), The Leverhulme Trust, 30/09/18 - 29/09/21, £295,430.00

• Jeffrey Cowton Wholesaler of the North: The Bewick-Beilby Enterprise and Newcastle Print History Start Date: 06/01/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
• Laura Sadler Laurence Sterne’s Afterlife in France: From the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century Start Date: 01/10/2022
• Jeffrey Cowton Wholesaler of the North: The Bewick-Beilby Enterprise and Newcastle Print History Start Date: 06/01/2025
• Jeffrey Cowton Wholesaler of the North: The Bewick-Beilby Enterprise and Newcastle Print History Start Date: 06/01/2025 End Date: 04/12/2025
• Charlotte Edgeshaw Bluestocking in the North: Elizabeth Montagu, Education and the Archive Start Date: 01/10/2023
• Laura Sadler Laurence Sterne’s Afterlife in France: From the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century Start Date: 01/10/2022 End Date: 17/10/2025
• Charlotte Edgeshaw Bluestocking in the North: Elizabeth Montagu, Education and the Archive Start Date: 01/10/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025

• English Literature PhD June 24 2014
• English Literature MA June 30 2009