Daniel Starza Smith

Dr Daniel Starza Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern English Literature at King’s College London, within the Faculty of Arts & Humanities’ Department of English. His research focuses on John Donne, early modern manuscript culture, and letterlocking—the study of pre-envelope epistolary security. He has held positions at the University of Reading, UCL, and a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Lincoln College, Oxford. His work includes landmark projects like the Donne Variorum and Signed, Sealed, & Undelivered, and he pioneered virtual unfolding of sealed letters using X-ray microtomography. He is General Editor of John Donne’s Correspondence for OUP and leads the Letterlocking project, featured in over 300 media outlets.

Research interests include Donne’s patrons, manuscript circulation, women’s writing, and editorial practices. He teaches early modern literature across undergraduate and graduate levels at King’s, emphasizing research methodologies. His awards include Fellowships from the Royal Historical Society (2017) and Higher Education Academy (2019), and the John Donne Society Distinguished Publication Award (2011).

• Education: Post-doctoral research at Lincoln College, Oxford; prior roles at Reading University and UCL.

His research group, Unlocking History, delivers letterlocking workshops for archives, libraries, and the public. Projects include collaborations with MIT Libraries, The National Archives, and the British Library. Key publications include John Donne and the Conway Papers (OUP, 2014) and co-authored Letterlocking (MIT Press, 2024).

Grants and partnerships include work with the British Academy and interdisciplinary initiatives involving computational techniques for historical document analysis. Future projects will deepen Donne studies and expand letterlocking research methodologies.

He is affiliated with King’s Research Centre for Early Modern Studies and Shakespeare Centre London. Current research explores Donne’s correspondence and material culture of early modern letters, with a focus on collaborative, technology-driven approaches to archival preservation and interpretation.