BRENNAN, Michael G.

PERSONAL: Male. Education: Cambridge University, M.A.; Oxford University, M.A., D.Phil.

ADDRESSES: Office—School of English, University of Leeds, Cavendish Rd., Leeds LS2 9JT, England. E-mail—m.g.brennan@leeds.ac.uk.

CAREER: Educator and author. Leeds University, Leeds, England, reader in renaissance studies.

MEMBER: Hakluyt Society (joint honorary secretary)

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Lady Mary Wroth's Love's Victory: The Penshurst Manuscript, Roxburghe Club (London, England), 1988.

Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: The Pembroke Family, Routledge (London, England), 1988.

(Editor) Sir Charles Somerset, The Travel Diary (1611–1612) of an English Catholic, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society (Leeds, England), 1993.

(Editor, with Margaret P. Hannay and Noel J. Kinnamon) The Collected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, Clarendon Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor) The Travel Diary of Robert Bargrave, Levant Merchant, 1647–1656, Hakluyt Society (London, England), 1999.

(With Noel J. Kinnamon) A Sidney Chronology, 1554–1654, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2003.

(Editor) The Origins of the Grand Tour: The Travels of Robert Montagu, Lord Mandeville (1649–1651), William Hammond (1655–1658) and Banaster Maynard (1660–1663), Hakluyt Society (London, England), 2004.

(Editor, with Margaret P. Hannay and Noel J. Kinnamon) Domestic Politics and Family Absence: The Correspondence (1588–1621) of Robert Sidney, First Earl of Leicester, and Barbara Gamage Sidney, Ashgate (Aldershot, Hampshire, England), 2005.

Contributor to academic publications, including Notes and Queries and English Historical Review.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The Sidneys of Penshurst and the Monarchy: 1500–1700, for Ashgate; The Selected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, for Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies.

SIDELIGHTS: British author Michael G. Brennan has written and taught extensively on the subjects of renaissance studies, literature, and travel writing. As a reader at the University of Leeds, Brennan's specialties include the lives and careers of the Sidneys of Penshurst, travel writings between 1500 and 1700, and the literature of Graham Greene. In addition to being the author and editor of several books, Brennan has contributed to numerous academic journals, including the Review of English Studies, Notes and Queries, and the Sidney Journal.

In 1988 Brennan published his first book, Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: The Pembroke Family. Using literary manuscripts, archives, and early printed sources, he outlines the literary and artistic patronage of four Renaissance earls of Pembroke, as well as Sir Philip Sidney, and Sidney's sister Mary, from 1550 to 1650. Reviewers found Brennan's book to be a good source of information on the subject, and a strong addition to other work in the field. Choice contributor S.M. Foley found "the detail and scale of his study go far beyond … earlier works."

Brennan's literary contributions also include works dealing with early British travel writing. In 2004, he published The Origins of the Grand Tour: The Travels of Robert Montagu, Lord Mandeville (1649–1651), William Hammond (1655–1658) and Banaster Maynard (1660–1663). In this work, Brennan focuses on three previously unpublished travel diaries by young Englishmen in western Europe. Brennan also discusses how these works fit into the context of the grand tour tradition and how they should be viewed alongside other travel writing of the time.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, April, 1989, S.M. Foley, review of Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance: The Pembroke Family, p. 1326.

English Historical Review, October, 1991, Simon Adams, review of Literary Patronage in the English Renaissance, p. 999.

ONLINE

Society for the History of Discoveries Web site, http://www.sochistdisc.org/ (April 19, 2005), Mark Charles Fissel, review of The Travel Diary of Robert Bargrave, Levant Merchant, 1647–1656.

University of Leeds Web site, http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ (April 19, 2005), "Michael G. Brennan."