Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is a Professor of English Literature and a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. His previous books include Becoming Dickens (2011), which was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize, The Story of Alice (2015), which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize, and Metamorphosis: A Life in Pieces (2023). He writes regularly for publications including the Times, Spectator, and Literary Review, while radio and television appearances include Start the Week, In Our Time, The Today Programme, BBC Breakfast, and The Culture Show. He has acted as the historical consultant on BBC productions of Jane Eyre, Emma, Great Expectations and Dickensian, and both of the Enola Holmes feature films for Netflix. He has judged the Man Booker Prize and the Baillie Gifford Prize, and in 2015 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.