Born 6 January 1961, Robert Morrison studied at the University of Lethbridge; St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford; and the University of Edinburgh. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Manchester. In 1992, he became Assistant Professor at Acadia University in Nova Scotia. Currently he is Queen’s National Scholar at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He specializes in nineteenth-century British literature and culture. In 2017, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. From 2019-2024, Robert was British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University.

His most recent book is The Regency Years, During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love and Britain Becomes Modern (2019). In Britain the book was published under the title The Regency Revolution: Jane Austen, Napoleon, Lord Byron and the Making of the Modern World (2019). The Economist named The Regency Years one of its 2019 Books of the Year and it was longlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize. As The Regency Revolution, it was longlisted for the Elma Dangerfield Prize and shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Crown Award for the best in historical non-fiction.

Morrison is also the author of The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey (2009), which was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize (2010). His annotated edition of Jane Austen’s Persuasion was published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2011). With Daniel Sanjiv Roberts, he edited Romanticism and Blackwood’s Magazine: “An Unprecedented Phenomenon” (2013). With Chris Baldick, he co-edited The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre for Oxford World’s Classics (1997).

He was the University of Lethbridge Distinguished Alumni of the Year in 2013. He has won the Queen’s University Frank Knox Award for Excellence in Teaching on three occasions (2014, 2008, and 2006). The Knox is the highest honour given to a Professor by the students of Queen’s. He has won the Queen’s University W. J. Barnes Award for Excellence in Teaching on two occasions (2018 and 2006). The Barnes is the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society’s highest tribute to an individual for teaching excellence.

He is married to Carole Beaudin. They have two children.

Robert Morrison in Edinburgh, 1989