Skull and the Nightingale

After teaching at the Catholic University of Lublin and the University of Lodz, both in Poland, at the University of Tokyo and at Smith College in the United States, Michael Irwin moved to the University of Kent, in Canterbury, where he became Professor of English, specialising in eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature. His published eighteenth-century work includes a full-length study of Fielding and essays that take in Defoe, Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, Johnson and Pope.

'This is a surprising and thrilling Rake's Progress. I enjoyed every word' Diana Athill, author of Stet 'An atmospheric portrait of the Georgian world' Sunday Times 'Rollickingly enjoyable' Literary Review 'Part crime thriller, part historical novel - with a heady dose of women, wine and weird company to boot - Irwin's epistolary novel is entirely captivating' We Love This Book 'A splendid novel: immaculately researched, morally fascinating and strangely troubling. It kept surprising me and delighting me in equal measure' Andrew Taylor, author of The American Boy