Elisabeth Jay's interests lie predominantly in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries: she has published widely on fiction, prose and
poetry of this period. Her most recent book is
'British Writers and Paris 1830-1875' (OUP, 2016). Among the Victorian women writers upon whom
she has worked, she has a particular interest in Margaret Oliphant whose
biography she has written and whose autobiography she has edited. She is also
joint general editor of a
25 volume Pickering & Chatto series devoted to
Oliphant’s works. Her other major interest is the interdisciplinary area of
literature and theology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: she is
co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology.
In genre terms she is particularly interested in
fiction, biography and autobiography and the permeable boundaries between
these. Her theoretical interests are mainly located in feminist and gender
studies. She has taught in Northern Ireland, France, Belgium and the USA as well
as in Oxford.