Gillian Neale

Research

Gillian Neale’s PhD contributes to a wider, collaborative Leverhulme Trust-funded project, ‘The Society of  Authors, 1884–1914: Professional Association and Literary Property’. Her research examines the grass-roots membership of the Society and the benefits of membership, including the legal work the Society’s solicitors carried out on behalf of members’ claims against publishers and editors. Gillian’s supervisors are Dr Andrew Nash (IES) and Professor Clare Pettitt (University of Cambridge).

Previous Research:

Gillian has an MA in the History of the Book (IES). She is interested in the histories of authorship, literary culture, and literary networks with particular with regard to authors who are marginalised or largely invisible. Her thesis draws attention to two such groups of members within the Society of Authors whose value to the organisation remain overlooked—namely, unpublished writers who aspired to authorship and women. Beyond her PhD, Gillian’s wider research interests include the histories of the book and publishing from the mid-1900s to the mid-1900s. She has a long-standing fascination with British publishers’ competitive challenges to the launch of Penguin books, and is a member of the Penguin Research Network.