Rate My Professor Paul Eggert

Emeritus Professor Paul Raymond Eggert is an editorial theorist, scholarly editor, and book historian within the broad field of English literature at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra's School of Humanities & Social Sciences. He joined UNSW Canberra as a Lecturer in English in 1985 and rose through the ranks to Professor. Eggert served as Head of School from 2001 to 2003 and was the Founding Director of the Australian Scholarly Editions Centre from 1993 to 2005. He held an Australian Research Council Professorial Research Fellowship from 2009 to 2014. A Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities since 1998, he chaired its English-discipline section from 2009 to 2011, served as General Editor of the Academy Editions of Australian Literature (10 volumes, 1996-2007), and was President of the Society for Textual Scholarship from 2013 to 2014. His awards include the Centenary Medal for services to the study of literature in 2003, awards from the Association for Documentary Editing in 2005, awards from the Society for Textual Scholarship in 2011 and 2017, and a lifetime achievement award from the D. H. Lawrence Society of North America in 2022.

Eggert's research specializations encompass textual studies and scholarly editing in practice and theory, with a focus on D. H. Lawrence, Charles Harpur, and 19th-century Australian literature. Key publications include The Work and the Reader in Literary Studies: Scholarly Editions and Book History (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Securing the Past: Conservation in Art, Architecture and Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2009; winner of the Society for Textual Scholarship’s Finneran Award for the best book of editorial theory for 2009–10), Biography of a Book: Henry Lawson's While the Billy Boils (Sydney University Press and Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad (co-edited with Roger Osborne, Cambridge University Press, 2013), While the Billy Boils: The Original Newspaper Versions (co-edited with Elizabeth Webby, Sydney University Press, 2013), and Robbery Under Arms (co-edited with Elizabeth Webby, University of Queensland Press, 2006). He has produced several full-scale scholarly editions of works by D. H. Lawrence, Henry Kingsley, and Rolf Boldrewood since 1990, and The Letters of Charles Harpur and his Circle (co-edited with Chris Vening, Sydney University Press, forthcoming 2023). Eggert's work has advanced scholarly editing practices and digital humanities projects, including the Charles Harpur Critical Archive.