Researcher Details |

Sharon Murphy

Contact Details

Assistant Professor

Dr. Sharon Murphy is Assistant Professor in the School of English, and was Research Convenor of the School between 2021 and 2022. Dr. Murphy was previously Chairperson of the Master's programme in Children's and Young Adult Literature from the establishment of the School in 2016 until 2019; prior to that, she was Director of the Master's programme in Children's Literature in St. Patrick's College (from 2014). She is the author of The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Maria Edgeworth and Romance (Four Courts Press, 2004). She has also published in Children’s Literature, Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction, The Lion and the Unicorn, Book History, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and in essay collections. She completed her PhD on the works of Maria Edgeworth in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin, and her Master of Arts Degree (Research; First Class Honours) in Modern English and American Literature in the Department of English UCD.

Book

	Year	Publication
	2018	Sharon Murphy (2018) The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901 [Paperback Edition]. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
	2016	Sharon Murphy (2016) The British Soldier and his Libraries, c. 1822-1901. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
	2004	Sharon Murphy (2004) Maria Edgeworth and Romance. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

Peer Reviewed Journal

	Year	Publication
	2022	Sharon Murphy (2022) '“ ‘Be Careful. I am death!’: ‘Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’ and Britons’ ‘Great War’ against Snakes in Late-Nineteenth-Century India'. Children's Literature, 50 :98-120.
	2022	Sharon Murphy (2022) '“ ‘A hungry, ragged, and forsaken little boy’: The Significance of the Street Arab(s) in The Moonstone and The Sign of Four.”'. Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction, 53 (1):20-41.
	2020	Sharon Murphy (2020) ''I think I shall die soon, Boosy': Childhood Illness and Mortality in The History of Little Henry and his Bearer'. The Lion and the Unicorn, 44 (3):242-261.
	2011	Sharon Murphy (2011) ''Libraries, Schoolrooms, and Mud Gadowns: (Formal) Scenes of Reading at East India Company Stations in India, c. 1819-1837''. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 21 (4):459-467.
	2009	Sharon Murphy (2009) ''Imperial Reading?: the East India Company's Lending Libraries for Soldiers''. Book History, 12 :74-99.
	1998	Sharon Murphy (1998) ''Charlotte Bronte and the Appearance of Jane Eyre''. Bronte Society Transactions, (April):17-26.

Book Chapter

	Year	Publication
	2011	Sharon Murphy (2011) ''Empires and Education: Maria Edgeworth's Writing for Children'' In: Young Irelands: Studies in Irish Children's Literature. Dublin : Four Courts Press.
	2011	Sharon Murphy (2011) ''Quite incapable of appreciating books written for educated readers: the mid-nineteenth-century British Soldier'' In: A Return to the Common Reader. Farnham : Ashgate Publishing.
	2009	Sharon Murphy (2009) ''Making (Protestant) Men: Alfred and Galba and the East India Company Soldiers'' In: Masculinity and the Other. Cambridge : Cambridge Scholars Press.
	2008	Sharon Murphy (2008) ''Beauties and Defects: Maria Edgeworth's Representations of Georgian Dublin'' In: Georgian Dublin. Dublin : Four Courts Press.

Electronic Source

	Year	Publication
	2008	Sharon Murphy (2008) Introductory bio-critical essay on 'Anna Maria Edwards,' Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period. Virginia, USA: ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: Popular Tales' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campbell Ross. ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: The Parent's Assistant' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campbell Ross. ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: Belinda' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campbell Ross. ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: Letters for Literary Ladies' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campell Ross. ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: Ennui' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campbell Ross. ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: The Absentee' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campbell Ross. ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: Moral Tales' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campbell Ross. ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campell Ross. ELES
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) 'Maria Edgeworth: Practical Education' for The Literary Encyclopedia. Vol. 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837. Ed. Ian Campbell Ross. London: ELES

Book Review

	Year	Publication
	2016	Sharon Murphy (2016) Review of John Countryman and Kelly Matthews eds., The Country of the Young: Interpretations of Youth and Childhood in Irish Culture in The Irish Literary Supplement. BREV
	2010	Sharon Murphy (2010) Review of Susan B. Egenolf, The Art of Political Fiction in Hamilton, Edgeworth, and Owenson in Review of English Studies. BREV [DOI]
	2005	Sharon Murphy (2005) Review of Clare O’Halloran, Golden Ages and Barbarous Nations: Antiquarian Debate and Cultural Politics in Ireland, c. 1750-1800 in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review. BREV
	2003	Sharon Murphy (2003) Review of Paul O’Brien, Shelley and Revolutionary Ireland in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review. BREV
	2003	Sharon Murphy (2003) Review Article: Angela Bourke, Siobhán Kilfeather et al eds., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Irish Women’s Writing and Traditions in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review. BREV
	2002	Sharon Murphy (2002) Review of Norman White, Hopkins in Ireland in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review Winter. BREV

Conference Contribution

	Year	Publication
	2021	Sharon Murphy (2021) Victorian Inclusion and Exclusion: Victorian Popular Fiction Association 13th Annual Conference 'Nothing of an improper character [should obtain admission]': Garrison Libraries, and the Nineteenth-Century British Soldier Online, 16/07/2021-.
	2020	Sharon Murphy (2020) In Extremis: The Limits of Life, Death, and Consciousness in the Long Nineteenth Century 'That was how I earned the Treasure': The Traumatic Story of Jonathan Small Humanities Institute, University College Dublin, .
	2019	Sharon Murphy (2019) ECLRNI Symposium 'I think I shall die soon, Boosy': Childhood Illness and Mortality in The History of Little Henry and his Bearer DCU, .
	2019	Sharon Murphy (2019) The Threatened Child in Nineteenth-Century Popular Fiction and Culture 'A Hungry Ragged and Forsaken Little Boy': The Significance of the Street Arab in The Moonstone, The Sign of Four, and Kim Humanities Institute, University College Dublin (September 2019), .
	2019	Sharon Murphy (2019) Mind, Matter(s), Spirit: Forms of Knowledge in Victorian Popular Fiction and Culture 9 July, 2019 'That was how I earned the Treasure': The Sign of Four and the Traumatic Story of Jonathan Small' University of Greenwich, London (July, 2019), .
	2018	Sharon Murphy (2018) Centuries of Childhood: A Conference on the History of Children and Childhood in Ireland and Beyond 'I think I shall die soon, Boosy: Childhood Illness and Mortality in The History of Little Henry and his Bearer' Dublin City University, .
	2014	Sharon Murphy (2014) Reading and Writing from Below: Exploring the Margins of Modernity ‘Formed for Men “principally” drawn from the Working-Classes: Garrison Libraries, Reading Rooms, and Nineteenth-Century British Troops’ University of Helsinki, Finland, .
	2013	Sharon Murphy (2013) The Art of Books: A Book History Research Network Study Day ‘The Books are to be deposited in Locked Book-Cases’: the Book as a Physical Object in the East India Company’s Lending Libraries for Soldiers’ The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, .
	2012	Sharon Murphy (2012) SHARP Annual Conference ‘“Novels with a sensational title … were constantly asked for”: Garrison Libraries, Reading Rooms, and the nineteenth-century British Soldier’ University of Dublin, Trinity College, .
	2011	Sharon Murphy (2011) Institutions of Associational Reading: New Perspectives on Library History ‘Libraries, Schoolrooms, and Mud Gadowns: (Formal) Scenes of Reading at East India Company Stations in India, c. 1819-1837’ Liverpool Athenaeum under the auspices of the University of Liverpool’s Eighteenth-Century World’s Centre, .
	2008	Sharon Murphy (2008) Eighteenth Century Ireland Society Annual Conference ‘ “Not regarded with indifference by the men”: Catholic Soldiers and the East India Company’s Lending Libraries at Cawnpore’ University College Cork, .
	2008	Sharon Murphy (2008) War, Empire and Slavery, c. 1790-1820 ‘Inappropriate for Soldiers?: Images of War in the Early Waverley Novels’ University of York, .
	2008	Sharon Murphy (2008) The Irish and War ‘Maria Edgeworth and/on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars’ University of Dublin, Trinity College, .
	2008	Sharon Murphy, Anne Markey, David Murphy (2008) The Irish and War Co-Organizers University of Dublin, Trinity College, .
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) Masculinity and the Other: An Interdisciplinary Conference at Balliol College ‘Making Protestant Men: Alfred and Galba (1805) and the East India Company Soldiers’ Balliol College, Oxford, .
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) The Novel: Democracy’s Form? ‘Imperial Reading?: East India Company Soldiers and the Novel Between 1820 and 1834’ University of Sussex, .
	2007	Sharon Murphy (2007) Books on the Battlefield: The Reception, Use, and Appropriation of Texts in Warfare, c. 1450 to the Present ‘Making (Fighting) Men: The East India Company’s Lending Libraries for Soldiers’ University of York, .

Research Interests

Dr. Murphy has particular research interests in the Romantic and Victorian novel; the relationship between fiction and empire (particularly with reference to India); children's literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the history of the book and of reading; and the work of Maria Edgeworth. She is currently developing a research project on literary representations of the British experience of imperial India. Dr. Murphy welcomes proposals for doctoral work on topics related to her research interests.

Current Postgraduate Students

	Student Name	Degree	Supervision
	Nebot-Deneuville ,Laetitia	PhD	Supervisor

Teaching Interests

Dr. Murphy teaches eighteenth-and nineteenth-century children's literature on the Master's Programme in Children's and Young Adult Literature, where she also supervises MA theses. She teaches on a number of undergraduate modules, where she specializes in the literature of the Romantic and Victorian periods and children's literature (especially of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). She also teaches a third-year research option on the representation of India in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novels and tales for adults and children.