Exeter academic elected to the Council of the Royal Society of Literature

An award-winning biographer and expert in the literature of 18th and 19th century Britain is to serve on the governing body of one of the most prestigious learned societies in the arts.

Daisy Hay, Professor of English and Life Writing in the Department of English and Creative Writing, has been elected to the Council of the Royal Society of Literature – the charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK.

Professor Hay has been a Fellow of the RSL since 2018, alongside luminaries in the field such as authors, Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro.

And now, following her nomination and election, she will serve a four-year term on the Council, helping to direct the RSL’s activities alongside a team of Fellows, staff and RSL President Bernadine Evaristo.

“It has been a challenging year for the RSL, but it’s an enormously important institution because of the way it celebrates and shares literature and supports writers,” Professor Hay said. “I value my RSL Fellowship hugely and want to play a part in helping the society move forward, and in implementing the recommendations of the governance review commissioned by the previous Council.”

The RSL was founded in 1820, with the patronage of King George IV, to “reward literary merit and excite literary talent”. It awards several prestigious annual prizes, and among its past membership include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, JRR Tolkien, Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy.

Professor Hay has been teaching at Exeter since 2013, and has written several critically-acclaimed and award-winning biographies. These include Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives (2010); Mr and Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance (2015); and Dinner with Joseph Johnson: Books and Friendship in a Revolutionary Age (2022).

She began her writing career as a doctoral student and then a Bye-Fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, before moving to Oxford where she held the Alistair Horne Fellowship at St Antony’s College and a Visiting Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Life Writing at Wolfson College. Professor Hay has also held a Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard, and in 2016, was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize by the Leverhulme Trust.

Speaking about her hopes for the role, Professor Hay says she intends to bring her “interest in the way structures work for and with people” to the RSL as it looks to update its constitution. She is also keen to explore the benefits her involvement with the Society might have for the University and the region.

“The Department of English and Creative Writing is at the forefront of work to promote, support and celebrate literature in the South West,” she said. “And the RSL is doing the same for writing and writers from all corners of the UK. So, there is a lot of potential to work together on achieving greater recognition for the writing and literature of our region.”