The Writers of Wales Database

MILES, PETER

Derlwyn, Cribyn, Lampeter, Ceredigion, SA48 7ND
Tel: 01570 470308
Email: petermiles1@aol.com

Peter hails from rural Sussex and graduated from the University of Birmingham where, as Charles Grant Robertson Scholar, he researched under David Lodge and nearly appeared on stage with Victoria Wood. He formerly acted as Head of English at University of Wales, Lampeter and is currently an Emeritus Fellow of the English Association. He has taught and researches the English and American novel and has ancillary interests in bibliography, textual criticism and book history; cultural studies; literature and the visual arts, and literature and class. He was a founder teacher of UWL Lampeter’s franchise and outreach degree programme in English at Brecon, Newtown and Aberdare. His fiction has been broadcast on BBC radio; his interests in Welsh literature have included acting as reviews editor for the Powys Review and as a member of the Advisory Editorial Panel of New Welsh Review.

In the field of academic English, Peter is best known for his studies of the eighteenth-century writer Tobias Smollett, including his Everyman edition of Smollett’s Welsh-centred novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1993). One such article was nominated in the United States for the Clifford Prize for the year’s best work in the field of eighteenth-century studies. He is also known for his publications dealing with working-class writing including his editions of Arthur Morrison’s A Child of the Jago (Everyman, 1996) and Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Oxford University Press, 2005). Peter has been a keynote speaker at the Robert Tressell Festival. He has also had his say on such matters as the madness of George III, the death of Stephen Crane, the secret life of Arthur Munby, the Piltdown Man controversy and Evelyn Waugh’s nervous breakdown. He has contributed to such journals as American Notes and Queries, Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography, The Book Collector, The British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies, Eighteenth-Century Life, Imprimatur, The Library, New Fiction, Notes and Queries, Prose Studies, Studies in Bibliography, Studies in Travel Writing, Style, Sussex Archaeological Collections, Trivium and Variations. Peter retired early from university work in 2008 (nothing to do with the bottles) and looks forward to picking up a number of literary projects as a freelance at some point in the future.

Reviews:
With respect to The Critics Debate: Wuthering Heights (Macmillan, 1990):

“…Peter Miles’s exemplary book … vigorous independent interpretation … page for page as remarkable as any book published this year. And Miles makes it look so easy...”  
Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

“...Peter Miles explains Heathcliff’s position best...”
Gradesaver website


With respect to Tobias Smollett & The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Everyman, 1993):

“...a splendid bit of historical sleuthing and a persuasive reading ... a model of what precise and responsible scholarship can achieve...” 
The Scriblerian

“...Miles has found new answers … and his critical discussion is excellent...”
Ariel 


With respect to  Robert Tressell & The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Oxford University Press, 2005):

“...Peter Miles’s fine piece on Tressell...”
Red Letters

“...superbly edited by Peter Miles...”
Contemporary Review

With respect to Cinema, Literature and Society (Croom Helm, 1987):

“...a thoughtful and wide-ranging new book...”
Daily Telegraph

“...a provocative analysis of the process of cultural change ... a stimulating analysis of changing notions of the British national family...”
Albion

On the Piltdown Man:
“...one article that must be read...”
Tom Turritin


On Bishop Burgess, Kenyon College Ohio and St David’s College Lampeter:

“...an engaging narrative...”
Journal of Ecclesiastical History


On Wilkie Collins’s The Dream Woman and Other Stories:

“...a wonderful collection of richly Gothic Tales...”
Book International

Selected Publications:
The Critics Debate: Wuthering Heights (Macmillan, 1990)

Contributed to:
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (co-editor) (Pan, 1982)
The Art of Travel (contributor) (Frank Cass, 1982)
Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope (co-editor) (Penguin, 1984)
Cinema, Literature and Society: Elite and Mass Culture in Interwar Britain (co-author) (Croom Helm, 1987)
The British Working-Class Novel in the Twentieth-Century (contributor)(Edward Arnold, 1984)
The Word and the Visual Imagination (contributor) (UWL Lampeter, 1989)
 The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett (editor) (Everyman, 1993)
A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison (editor) (Everyman, 1996)
The Dream-Woman and Other Stories by Wilkie Collins (editor) (Everyman, 1998)
Selected Irish Writers from the Library of John Quinn (contributor) (Locust Hill, 2001)
Cities on the Margin: On the Margin of Cities (contributor) (Universitaires Presses de Franche-Comte, 2001)
Prodigal Father Revisited: Writers and Artists in the World of John Butler Yeats (contributor) (Locust Hill, 2003)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (editor) (Oxford University Press, 2005)
Bishop Burgess and His World (contributor) (University of Wales Press, 2006)