1. Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures
  2. School of English
  3. People
  4. Profile
Professor Michael G. Brennan

Professor Michael G. Brennan

  • Position: Professor of Renaissance Studies
  • Areas of expertise: 16-17th century literature and history; Sidneys of Penshurst; travel writing, 1450-1700; textual editing; Venice; 20th century literature, including Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell.
  • Email: M.G.Brennan@leeds.ac.uk
  • Phone: +44(0)113 343 4745
  • Location: 8.1.04 8 Cavendish Road

Profile

My research interests cover:

  1. 16-17th century literature and history, especially the Sidneys of Penshurst
  2. Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell and Catholic writers
  3. Travel writings: 1450-1700
  4. Textual Editing
  5. English travellers to Venice

Recent publications

My recent publications include:(book) English Travellers to Venice: 1450–1600, The Hakluyt Society, 2022; (editions), Evelyn Waugh’s book on Mexico, Robbery Under Law: The Mexican Object Lesson (2022) and his biography of the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Rossetti: His Life and Works (2017), as volumes 16 and 24 of the Oxford University Press 43 volume edition of The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh; (co-edition) Lady Mary Wroth’s pastoral drama, Love’s Victory, The Revels Plays, Manchester University Press, 2021; (monograph) George Orwell and Religion (Bloomsbury, 2017); (monograph) Graham Greene: Political Writer (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); (co-editor) The Ashgate Research Companion to the Sidneys: 1500-1700, 2 volumes (Ashgate, 2015); (co-edition) The Letters (1595-1608) of Rowland Whyte and Robert Sidney, First Earl of Leicester (American Philosophical Society, 2013); (monograph) Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family (Bloomsbury, 2013); and (monograph) Graham Greene, Fictions, Faith and Authorship (Continuum, 2010). 

Teaching

My teaching covers literature of the 16th–17th and the 19th–21st centuries, including modules such as Renaissance Literature, Shakespeare, Victorian Literature, Modern English Fictions, and Contemporary Literature.

Publications

I. Books

<p>1.&nbsp;<em>Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: The Pembroke Family</em>, pp. xiv + 251, London and New York, Routledge &amp; Chapman and Hall, l988.</p><p>2.&nbsp;<em>Lady Mary Wroth&#39;s Love&#39;s Victory. The Penshurst Manuscript,</em>&nbsp;pp. xiv + 245, London, The Roxburghe Club, 1988.</p><p>3.&nbsp;<em>The Travel Diary (1611-1612) of an English Catholic, Sir Charles Somerset</em>, pp. xviii + 348, Leeds, The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, 1993).</p><p>4. (with Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon),&nbsp;<em>The Collected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke</em>, 2 volumes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, rpt. 1999.&nbsp;<em>Volume I: Poems, Translations, and Correspondence</em>, pp. xxxii + 354.</p><p>5.&nbsp;(with Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon),&nbsp;<em>The Collected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke</em>, 2 volumes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998,&nbsp;<em>Volume II: The Psalmes of David</em>, pp. xxiv + 501.</p><p>6.&nbsp;<em>The Travel Diary of Robert Bargrave, Levant Merchant 1647-1656</em>. Edited by Michael G. Brennan, pp. xx + 288, London, The Hakluyt Society, Third Series, No. 3, 1999.</p><p>7. (with Noel Kinnamon),&nbsp;<em>A Sidney Chronology: 1554-1654</em>, pp. xxiii + 315, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.</p><p>8.&nbsp;<em>The Origins of the Grand Tour: the Travels of Robert Montagu, Lord Mandeville (1649-1654), William Hammond (1655-1658) and Banaster Maynard (1660-1663)</em>. Edited by Michael G. Brennan, xviii + 331. London, Hakluyt Society, Third Series, No. 14, 2004.</p><p>9. (with Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon),&nbsp;<em>Domestic Politics and Family Absence: the Correspondence (1588-1621) of Robert Sidney, First Earl of Leicester, and Barbara Gamage Sidney</em>, pp. xvii + 272. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2005.</p><p>10. (with Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon),&nbsp;<em>The Selected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke</em>, pp. xviii + 296. Tempe, Arizona, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2005.</p><p>11.&nbsp;<em>The Sidneys of Penshurst and the Monarchy, 1500-1700</em>, pp. xiv + 188. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2006.</p><p>12. (with Hannibal Hamlin, Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon),&nbsp;<em>The Sidney Psalter. The Psalms of Sir Philip and Mary Sidney</em>, Oxford World&#39;s Classics, pp. xlviii + 334. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.</p><p>13.&nbsp;<em>Graham Greene: Fictions, Faith and Authorship</em>. London and New York: Continuum Publishing, pp. xvi + 173, 2010.</p><p>14. (with Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon),&nbsp;<em>The Correspondence of Dorothy Percy Sidney [1598-1659], Countess of Leicester</em>. Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, pp. xxxii + 227, 2010.</p><p>15.&nbsp;<em>Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family</em>,&nbsp;London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. xx + 170, 2013&nbsp;.</p><p>16. (with Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon),&nbsp;<em>The Letters (1595-1608) of Rowland Whyte and Robert Sidney, First Earl of Leicester</em>, The American Philosophical Society, pp xxxii + 648, 2013.</p><p>17.&nbsp; (with Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon)&nbsp;<em>The Ashgate Research Companion to the Sidneys: 1500-1700</em>, 2 volumes, Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, vol. 1, pp. xlviii+ 340; vol. 2, pp. xlviii 352, 2015.</p><p>18.&nbsp;<em>Graham Greene:&nbsp;Political Writer</em>, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. xxiv + 208, 2016.</p><p>19.&nbsp;<em>George Orwell and Religion</em>, London: Bloomsbury, xx + 184, 2016.</p><p>20. &nbsp;(ed.) Evelyn Waugh,&nbsp;<em>Rossetti: His Life and Works</em>,&nbsp;<em>Volume 16,</em>&nbsp;<em>The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh</em>, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 284, xx + 2017.</p>

II. Recent Articles and Contributions to Books

<p>1. &#39;The Exile of Two Kentish Royalists During the English Civil War&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Archaeologia Cantiana</em>, vol. 120, pp. 77-105, 2000.</p><p>2. &#39;John Bargrave and the Jesuits&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Catholic Historical Review</em>&nbsp;vol. 88, pp. 655-676, 2002.</p><p>3. &#39;The Queen&#39;s Proposed Visit to Wilton House in 1599 and the &quot;Sidney&quot; Psalms&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Sidney Journal</em>, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 27-54, 2002. Reprinted in&nbsp;<em>Ashgate Critical Essays on Women Writers in England, 1550-1700: Volume 2: Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke</em>, ed. Margaret P. Hannay (2009).</p><p>4.&nbsp;<em>The Hakluyt Society Annual Lecture 2001</em>,&nbsp;<em>English Civil War Travellers and the Origins of the Western European Grand Tour</em>, pp. 1-32, London, The Hakluyt Society, 2002.</p><p>5. &#39;Damnation and Divine Providence: the Consolations of Catholicism for Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh&#39;, in&nbsp;<em>Perceptions of Religious Faith in the Work of Graham Greene</em>, ed. W. Thomas Hill, pp. 255-87, Peter Lang Publishers: Bern, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, New York, Oxford, Vienna, 2002.</p><p>6. &#39;Creating Female Authorship in the Early Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson and Lady Mary Wroth&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Gender and Scribal Publication in England, 1550-1700</em>, ed. George Justice and Nathan Tinker. pp. 73-93, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2002.</p><p>7. &#39;The Literature of Travel: 1500-1695&#39;, in&nbsp;<em>The Cambridge History of the Book</em>, ed. J. Barnard, D. McKenzie, and M. Bell, pp. 246-273, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2002.</p><p>8. &#39;Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Mexico&#39;, in&nbsp;<em>Renascence. Essays on the Values in Literature</em>&nbsp;[Special issue, vol. 55]:&nbsp;<em>Recent Critical Perspectives on Graham Greene (1904-1991)</em>, pp. 7-23, Marquette University: Milwaukee, 2002.</p><p>9. (with Margaret Hannay and Noel Kinnamon), &#39;Robert Sidney, the Dudleys, and Queen Elizabeth&#39;, in&nbsp;<em>Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman</em>, ed. C. Levin, J. Eldridge Carney, and D. Barrett-Graves, pp. 20-42, Ashgate Publishing: Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2003.</p><p>10. (with Noel Kinnamon), &#39;Robert Sidney, &quot;Mr Johnson&quot;, and the Education of William Sidney at Penshurst&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Notes &amp; Queries</em>, vol. 248, ns. vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 430-437, 2003.</p><p>11. [articles on] Armand David (1826-1900), vol. I. pp. 319-320; Pre-Revolutionary France, vol. I. pp. 458-462; Istanbul, vol. II, pp. 624-627; John Ogilvy (1600-1676), vol. II, pp. 882-883; Peter Martyr (1447-1526), vol. II, pp. 933-935; Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922), vol. III, 1078-1080; and Jean de Thevenot (1633-1670), vol. III, pp. 1174-1175, in&nbsp;<em>Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia</em>, ed. J. Speake, 3 vols, Fitroy Dearborn: New York, 2003).</p><p>12. &#39;English Contact With Europe&#39;, in The Arden Critical Companions,&nbsp;<em>Shakespeare and Renaissance Europe</em>, ed. A. Hadfield and P. Hammond, pp. 53-97, Arden Shakespeare/Thomson Learning: London, 2004.</p><p>13. [articles on] &#39;Robert Bargrave&#39;, &#39;Nicholas Breton&#39;, &#39;Nicholas Grimald&#39;, &#39;Henry Lok&#39;, &#39;Sir Charles Somerset&#39;, in the&nbsp;<em>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</em>, ed. C. Matthew and B. Harrison, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2004.</p><p>14. [articles on] &#39;Abraham Fraunce&#39; and &#39;Nicholas Grimald&#39;,&nbsp;<em>The Dictionary of British Classicists, 1500-1960</em>, ed. Robert B. Todd, Thoemmes Press: Bristol and Chicago, 2004.</p><p>15. &#39;&quot;Your Lordship&#39;s to Do You All Humble Service&quot;: Rowland Whyte&#39;s Correspondence With Robert Sidney, Viscount De Lisle and First Earl of Leicester&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Sidney Journal</em>, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 1-37, 2005.</p><p>16.&nbsp;&#39;Graham Greene&#39;s Catholic Conversion: the early writings (1923-29) and&nbsp;<em>The Man Within</em>&#39;,&nbsp;<em>LOGOS</em>, vol. 9, no. 3, pp.134-157, 2006.</p><p>17.&nbsp;&#39;The Sidneys of Penshurst, the Earldom of Leicester and the Monarchies of England, Spain and France&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Sidney Journal</em>, vol. 22, nos 1-2, pp. 25-45, 2006.</p><p>18. (with Margaret Hannay) &#39;Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Encyclopedia of British Literature</em>, ed. D. Scott Kastan, Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 206-210, 2006,</p><p>19. &#39;Robert Sidney, King James I and Queen Anna: the Politics of Intimate Service (1588-1607)&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Sidney Journal</em>,&nbsp;<em>A Special Issue on Sir Robert Sidney</em>, vol. 25, nos 1-2, pp. 3-30, 2007.</p><p>20. &#39;Shakespeare&#39;s Italian Stages: Venice and Belmont in&nbsp;<em>The Merchant of Venice</em>&#39;, in Ignatius Critical Editions,&nbsp;<em>The Merchant of Venice</em>, ed. J. Pearce, pp. 153-165, 2009.</p><p>21.&#39;The Sidney Family and Jacobean Portrait Engravings&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Sidney Journal</em>, vol. 27, no. 1, pp.9-30, 2009.</p><p>22. &#39;Graham Greene&#39;s&nbsp;<em>Monsignor Quixote</em>. A Pilgrimage of Doubt and Reason toward Faith and Belief&#39;, in&nbsp;<em>Between Human and Divine. The Catholic Vision in Contemporary Literature</em>, ed. M.R. Reichardt, The Catholic University of America Press: Washington, D.C., pp. 154-170, 2010.&nbsp;</p><p>23. &#39;&quot;Thy necessity is yet greater than mine&quot;: The Re-mythologizing in the Literary and Visual Arts of Fulke Greville&#39;s Water-bottle Anecdote (1750-1930)&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Sidney Journal</em>, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 1-40 (2010).</p><p>24. &#39;Robert Sidney and the Earl of Essex: A Dangerous Friendship Viewed Through the Eyes of Rowland Whyte&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Sidney Journal</em>, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 1-38 (2014).</p><p>25. &#39;The Nineteenth-Century Rediscovery of Sir Philip Sidney&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Sidney Journal</em>, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 117-53.</p><p>26. &nbsp;(with Barbara Pezzini), &#39;Provenance as a History of Change: From Caliari in Scotland to Tintoretto in America. The commercial and connoisseurial trajectories of a Venetian portrait&#39;,&nbsp;<em>Journal of the History of Collections</em>, 2017, pp. 1-13.</p><p>27. &#39;Philip Sidney&#39;s Book-Buying at Venice and Padua: Giovanni Varisco&#39;s Venetian Editions of Jacopo Sannazaro&#39;s <em>Arcadia</em> (1571 and 1578) and Edmund Spenser&#39;s <em>The Shepheardes Calender</em> (1579)&#39;, <em>Sidney Journal</em>, 36, no. 1, pp. 19-40.</p><p>28. &#39;Editorial Matters&#39; [on the manuscript sources of Richard Hakluyt&#39;s accounts of the Spanish Armada (1588) and the Cadiz Expedition(1596)], in&nbsp;<em>The Ashgate Research Companion to Travel Writing</em>, ed. Tim Youngs and Alasdair Pettinger, London: Routledge (forthcoming).</p>

Responsibilities

  • Programme Leader (Q306) BA English Literature
  • Member of School Taught Student Education Committee (STSEC)
  • Member of School Research & Innovation Committee

Research interests

My research covers a wide chronological span, encompassing English literature and history from the mid-fiftheen century to the end of the seventeenth century and also a range of ninettenth and twentieth century writers. I work in three main areas (see also Publications):

(1) The writings in manuscript and print, literary patronage, and public careers of the Sidneys of Penshurst and the Herberts, Earls of Pembroke, of Wilton between 1500 and 1700. My book publications in this area include Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: the Pembroke family (1988) and (with Noel J. Kinnamon) A Sidney Chronology: 1554–1654 (2003). I have also edited various works by the Sidneys, including the first published edition of Lady Mary Wroth's complete pastoral drama, Lady Mary Wroth's Love's Victory. The Penshurst Manuscript (1988); and (with Margaret P. Hannay and Noel J. Kinnamon) the first complete edition of the Countess of Pembroke's extensive writings, The Collected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, 2 vols (1998). With the same co-editors, I have also compiled a student edition of the Countess's selected works: The Selected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke,(2005); and an edition of Robert Sidney's letters to his wife Barbara: Domestic Politics and Family Absence: the Correspondence (1588–1621) of Robert Sidney, First Earl of Leicester and Barbara Gamage Sidney (2005)

My most recent books on the Sidneys are a study of their dealings with the English monarchy: The Sidneys of Penshurst and the Monarchy: 1500–1700 (2006); The Sidney Psalter: The Psalms of Sir Philip and Mary Sidney (with Hannibal Hamlin, Margaret P. Hanney and Noel J Kinnamon) (OUP, 2009; The Correspondence (c.1626–1659) of Dorothy Percy Sidney, Countess of Leicester (with Margaret P. Hannay and Noel J. Kinnamon) (Ashgate, 2010); The Letters (1595-1608) of Rowland Whyte to Robert Sidney, First Earl of Leicester (with Margaret P. Hannay and Noel J. Kinnamon) (American Philosophical Society, 2013); The Ashgate Research Companion to the Sidneys: 1500–1700, 2 volumes (Ashgate, 2015); and a co-edition for The Revels Plays, of Lady Mary Wroth’s pastoral drama, Love’s Victory. 

(2i) The writings of Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell. I am particularly interested in aspects of religious faith and politics in their fictions, travel writings, journalism and correspondence. My book publications in this area include Graham Greene: Fictions, Faith and Authorship (Continuum 2010); Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family (Bloomsbury, 2013) his Rossetti HIs Life and Works (Oxford University Press, 2017), and his book on Mexico, Robbery Under Law (Oxford University Press, 2022); and George Orwell and Religion (Bloomsbury, 2017). I have also published a monograph linking literature and politics in the twentieth century: Graham Greene: Political Writer (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 

(3) Travel writings in manuscript and print between 1450 and 1700, especially relating to Western Europe, Paris, Venice and the Levant. My book publications in this area include The Travel Diary (1611–1612) of an English Catholic, Sir Charles Somerset (1993); The Travel Diary of Robert Bargrave, Levant Merchant 1647–1656 (1999); and The Origins of the Grand Tour: the Travels of Robert Montagu, Lord Mandeville (1649–1651), William Hammond (1656–1658) and Banaster Maynard (1660–1663) (2004). I am co-editing for a new edition of Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations (Oxford University Press) Hakluyt's accounts of the Spanish Armada (1588) and the Earl of Essex's Cadiz Expedition (1596). I have also published English Travellers to Venice: 1450–1600 (2022), examining accounts of English travellers to Venice during the period 1450-1600, encompassing pilgrims, political and religious exiles, young men on educational grand tours, ambassadorial parties, scholars and adventurers.

I welcome enquiries from prospective research students who are interested in pursuing topics relating to (1) English Renaissance Studies (2) Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell (3) Travel Writings: 1450–1700, especially relating to Paris and Venice.

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • BA English University of Oxford
  • MA English Universities of Oxford and Cambridge
  • D. Phil University of Oxford
  • PGCE University of Oxford

Student education

My undergraduate teaching covers literature of the 16th–17th and the 19th–21st centuries, including modules such as Renaissance Literature, Shakespeare, Victorian Literature, Modern English Fictions, and Contemporary Literature. My MA and PhD supervisions have included a wide range of topics drawn from the 16th–21st centuries, often incorporating interdisciplinary aspects of literary and historical criticism. 

Research groups and institutes

  • Textual Histories Research Group
<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>