Nokes, David 1948–

PERSONAL: Born March 11, 1948, in London, England; son of Anthony John Nokes (a printer) and Ethel (Smith) Nokes. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Christ's College, Cambridge, B.A. (with honors), 1969, Ph.D., 1974.

ADDRESSES: Office—King's College, University of London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, England. Agent—Curtis Brown, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4SP, England. E-mail—davidlnokes@aol.com.

CAREER: University of London, King's College, London, England, lecturer, 1973–1987, reader, 1987–1998, professor, 1998–.

MEMBER: British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (member of executive committee, 1981–84).

AWARDS, HONORS: James Tait Black Prize, best biographical work published in the United Kingdom, 1985, for Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography; film award nominations, British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Royal Television Society, both 1992, for Clarissa.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Henry Fielding, Jonathan Wild, Penguin (New York, NY), 1982.

Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews, Penguin (New York, NY), 1987.

Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1987.

Raillery and Rage: A Study of Eighteenth-century Satire, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1987.

(Editor, with Janet Barron) An Annotated Critical Bibliography of Augustan Poetry, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989.

John Gay: A Profession of Friendship, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Jane Austen: A Life, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1997.

Television critic for Times Literary Supplement, 1987–89. Contributor to periodicals, including Times Literary Supplement and Spectator.

FOR TELEVISION

No Country for Old Men, British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), 1981.

(With Janet Barron) Clarissa (based on novel by Samuel Richardson), BBC, 1991, Public Broadcasting Service, 1992.

The Count of Solar, BBC, 1992.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, BBC, 1996.

Other television writing includes Frankenstein, Birth of a Monster, 2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A biography of Samuel Johnson, for Faber & Faber, expected in 2009.

SIDELIGHTS: A specialist in eighteenth-century English literature, David Nokes has made the classics accessible to the non-specialist with his Raillery and Rage: A Study of Eighteenth-century Satire; his award-winning biography, Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography; and with Jane Austen: A Life. In Raillery and Rage, Nokes discusses the themes and forms of Augustan satire and compares the culture and literature of the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. He then devotes individual chapters to such literary giants as Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding, Jonathan Swift, and John Gay.

Nokes elaborates on his study of Swift in Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed, part of the "Oxford Lives" biographical series. Nokes bases his sympathetic study principally on Swift's autobiographical verse and correspondence and on occasional anecdotes by Swift's peers. Dealing largely with Swift's public career, Nokes addresses the satirist's dealings with his literary and political contemporaries, his major works, and the vagaries of his reputation. Nokes also discusses Swift's much analyzed relationships with the principal women in his life, Esther Johnson and Hester Vanhomrigh. According to John Gross of the New York Times, this work "is soberly written, without any fireworks, but well-proportioned, intelligent and persuasive in its judgments." Thomas Flanagan, writing for the Washington Post Book World, stated that Nokes "has created, for the first time, a coherent and illuminating portrait of a great writer and tormented man."

Nokes took on "a biographer's nightmare," in the opinion of Spectator writer Leslie Mitchell, when he decided to chronicle the life of John Gay, a contemporary and friend of better-known writers such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. "No man was more retiring and no man took more trouble to cover his tracks," Mitchell said of Gay. "A few dozen letters and his published works are all that survive of the man's own mind. No doubt for this reason, if no other, this is the first biography to appear in over 50 years…. [It is] a brilliant production. Gay can rest contentedly for another half century at least." Mitchell lauded Nokes for telling Gay's story "with real flair. The literary and historical contexts are reconstructed with immaculate scholarship. Pulteney and Mrs Howard, Pope and the Duchess of Queensberry are as finely drawn as Gay himself. Digressions on spa life in Aix, the Atterbury conspiracy and the South Sea Bubble actually add to an understanding of the constraints within which Gay worked. Everything is informed by a sure sense of period. Equally, the texts of Gay's works are sensitively persuaded to give clues to the author's life."

Nokes reconstructed a better known literary figure with his next biography, Jane Austen. Austen's novels are characterized by a veneer of perfection that most biographers have extended to her own life. In part, the perception of Austen as a faultless person was fostered by her family following her death. Her sister and closest confidant, Cassandra, destroyed many of Jane's letters and journals and heavily censored the rest. Nevertheless, Nokes attempted to uncover some of the shadows in Austen's background. He related family scandals and tales that illustrated the vicious side of Austen's celebrated irony. New Statesman reviewer Malcolm Bradbury judged the book Jane Austen to be "exotic, adventurous, extended, and … soundly backed with quotations and historical insight." A Kirkus Reviews critic admitted that "this much-needed revisionist biography sheds new light on the great novelist," but warned that "it too often obscures the facts of her life behind webs of speculation about what she and her intimates might have thought or felt." Further criticizing Nokes for employing "too much imagination" and "too narrow a perspective," the reviewer nevertheless concluded that the book "offers new insights and a wealth of detail." Simon Jarvis, a reviewer for Times Literary Supplement, called Jane Austen "innovative." He credited Nokes with redrawing "the map of Austen's life on a number of occasions, although he does not in every case carry conviction. He is critically and psychologically acute, and refreshingly heterodox on some well-worn issues."

Nokes once told CA: "The eighteenth century marks the beginning of the modern age. The more I study eighteenth-century literature and society, the more clearly I see the origins of so many of the social and moral issues which continue to perplex us."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scholar, spring, 1996, p. 304.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 28, 1997, p. L10.

Atlantic, January, 1998, p. 93A.

Booklist, September 1, 1997, p. 52.

Boston Globe, November 23, 1997, p. E1.

Choice, October, 1995, p. 294.

Christian Science Monitor, August 28, 1997, p. B1.

Commonweal, November 7, 1997, p. 23.

Economist, October 18, 1997, p. S7.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1997, review of Jane Austen: A Life, p. 1012.

Library Journal, September 1, 1997, p. 182.

London Review of Books, May 11, 1995, p. 7-8.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, November 23, 1997, p. 3.

New Republic, May 4, 1998, p. 33A.

New Statesman, October 17, 1997, Malcolm Bradbury, review of Jane Austen, pp. 45-46.

New Statesman and Society, March 17, 1995, p.40.

New Yorker, March 31, 1986, p. 83.

New York Times, January 24, 1986, John Gross, review of Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography, p. 20.

New York Times Book Review, September 14, 1997, p. 7.

Observer, October 5, 1997, p. 17.

Publishers Weekly, July 7, 1997, p. 55.

Spectator, December 21-28, 1985, pp. 46-47; February 25, 1995, Leslie Mitchell, review of John Gay: A Profession of Friendship, p. 34; September 27, 1997, p. 41.

Times Literary Supplement, January 24, 1986, p. 84; January 22-28, 1988, p. 91; March 24, 1995, pp.12-13; September 12, 1997, Simon Jarvis, review of Jane Austen, pp. 3-4.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 1996, p. 16.

Wall Street Journal, November 17, 1997, A24.

Washington Post Book World, March 16, 1986, Thomas Flanagan, review of Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed, pp. 1, 14; October 26, 1997, p. 1.