Expertise

19th & early 20th century American Literature, American Women Novelists, Mystery & Detective Fiction

Education

A.B., College of William and Mary

A.M., Ph.D., Brown University

Biosketch

Melissa M. Pennell is a Professor of English.  Her field of expertise is 19th and early 20th century American literature.  She has secondary interests in mystery and detective fiction and in New England regional writers.  Recently, she published Masterpieces of American Romantic Literature (Greenwood), an introductory critical text for students and general readers.  She is also author of the Student Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne (Greenwood, 1999) and the Student Companion to Edith Wharton (Greenwood, 2003), as well as co-editor of American Literary Mentors (UP Florida, 1999).  She has published numerous articles and reviews in a variety of journals and has served as a peer reviewer for The Edith Wharton Review and for Pedagogy.  For the last several years she has been a contributor and content developer for the Hawthorne in Salem website (http:www.hawthorneinsalem.org) and served on the editorial board for production of "The Literary Map of Massachusetts" through the Massachusetts Center for the Book.  She is a consulting scholar at area museums and regularly delivers public lectures and workshops on American literature and culture.