I am a Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Chester with research interests in the Victorian novel, material culture and adaptation. During the academic year 2013-14 I have an AHRC Research Fellowship to work on my project: 'Literary Fabrics: The Textile Languages of Novels and Costume Dramas'. The funding also covers 'The Textile Stories Project' - for more details go to: http://dwtextilestories.blogspot.co.uk/ I am the author of two books: Women and Personal Property in the Victorian Novel (Ashgate, 2010) and The Sensation Novel and the Victorian Family Magazine (Palgrave, 2001). I have also published essays on Austen and screen adaptation, Henry James and the New Woman, George Eliot, Dickens, Gaskell and Charlotte Bronte. I am currently writing on costume in the costume drama, male drapers in the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods, and examining representations of tailors in the novels of Kingsley and Meredith.My teaching interests include nineteenth-century literature and culture, Gender Studies and critical theory.