John West

John West is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. He earned his BA and PhD from Warwick and an MSt from Oxford. He previously held a post-doctoral fellowship at Exeter, a visiting fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library, and was Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham before joining Warwick in 2017.

His research focuses on seventeenth-century literature, especially during the Civil Wars and Restoration, with strong interests in literature’s relationship to politics and religion. He was a Research Fellow on the Stuart Successions Project, which produced a database, anthology, and essay volume on succession literature. He contributed to Stuarts Online, an educational website developed with the Bodleian Library, Ashmolean Museum, and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. His current book project explores literature surrounding the 1660 Restoration, focusing on writers like Dryden, Katherine Philips, and George Wither. Future research includes a study of the mythological figure Comus across cultures and media, and a theological examination of the Holy Spirit in early modern British literature, reconnecting with his earlier work on Lucy Hutchinson.

His publications reflect a deep engagement with political and religious themes in early modern literature. Recent and forthcoming articles analyze royal deaths, poetic laureateship, democratic discourse, and myth-making during succession crises. His work spans major academic presses including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Liverpool University Press.

• Dryden and Enthusiasm: Literature, Religion, and Politics in Restoration England (Oxford, 2018)
• Literature of the Stuart Successions: An Anthology (Manchester, 2017, co-edited with Andrew McRae)
• "Epiques chang'd to Doleful Elegies": The Poems on the Death of Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester (The Seventeenth Century, 2024)
• "Good and Acceptable Services": John Dryden and the Laureateship (Liverpool UP, forthcoming)
• The People and the English Civil Wars (Cambridge UP, forthcoming)
• Poetry, the Passions, and Anti-Democracy in Later Stuart England (Leiden, 2019)
• ‘A great Romance feigned to raise wonder’: Literature and the Making of the 1689 Succession (Oxford, 2019)

John West actively supervises graduate and undergraduate students, having co-supervised a PhD on religion in Restoration drama (completed 2023) and advised numerous dissertations on Shakespeare, Restoration poetry, Eikon Basilike, and witchcraft plays. He convenes key modules including EN101: Epic Into Novel, EN2K5/3K5: Literature and Revolution, 1640–1660, and EN9ZF: Shakespeare in History. He is involved in academic grants and public engagement through projects like Stuarts Online, reflecting a commitment to both scholarly excellence and outreach.

He is a core member of the Faculty of Arts at Warwick and contributes to research networks in early modern studies, literature and history, and public humanities. His office is located in Room 5.43 of the Faculty of Arts Building, where he holds regular office hours for student consultation.