Melissa Valiska Gregory

Melissa Valiska Gregory, Ph.D. (Indiana), is Dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Education and Professor of English at the University of Toledo. A leading scholar of nineteenth-century British literature, she has earned the North American Victorian Studies Association President’s Award for extraordinary service and is internationally recognized for her work on Victorian domesticity, poetry, and the novel.

Education:

• Ph.D. — Indiana University

Research Interests:
Her research focuses on Victorian poetry and fiction, particularly the dramatic monologue, representations of motherhood and gender, Charles Dickens’s collaborative works, and the intersections of domesticity and violence in nineteenth-century British culture. She has co-edited four of Dickens’s Christmas stories and authored a biography of Dickens for Hesperus Press.

Publications Trajectory:
Across more than fifty scholarly works since 1997, her output clusters around four major themes: the poetics of the dramatic monologue, Victorian constructions of gender and motherhood, collaborative authorship in Dickens, and the cultural afterlives of Victorian genres. Recent essays interrogate race within the dramatic monologue and the innovative use of nursery rhyme by Victorian women writers.

Awards & Honors:

• North American Victorian Studies Association President's Award for extraordinary service

Editorial & Collaborative Work:
She has co-edited special journal issues, contributed chapters to major Routledge and Blackwell companions, and produced critical editions that shape contemporary understanding of Victorian literature.

Contact & Office:
University Hall 3180
University of Toledo
Email: melissa.gregory@utoledo.edu