Research Area(s)
- 18th and 19th Century literature
- Anna Barbauld
- Mary Shelley
- Textual editing
About me
Lisa Vargo teaches and researches 18th- and 19th-century literature and bibliography and textual criticism. She is particularly interested in women writers, especially Mary Shelley and Anna Barbauld. Lisa is Associate Editor (North America) for the journal Women's Writing and has recently joined the editorial board for the European Romantic Review.
Publications
BOOKS, CHAPTERS IN BOOKS, EXPOSITORY, AND REVIEW ARTICLES:
Editions Published:
L. Vargo, ed. 2007. Thomas Love Peacock. Nightmare Abbey. Peterborough: Broadview Press. L. Vargo, 2002. Spanish and Portuguese Lives. Mary Shelley’s Literary Lives and Other Writings Vol. 2 General Editor: Nora Crook. London: Pickering and Chatto.
L. Vargo, with Allison Muri, 2000. “Anna Laetitia Aikin [later Barbauld]. Poems 1773.” Romantic Circles Electronic Editions. <http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/>. Hypertext edition.
L. Vargo, ed., 1997. Mary Shelley, Lodore, Peterborough, ON., Broadview Press.
Chapters in Books Published:
L. Vargo, 2015. "Mathilde Blind: A Decadent Shelleyan." Decadent Romanticism: 1780-1914. Ed. Kostas Boyiopoulos and Mark Sandy. Aldershot: Ashgate. 119-30.
L. Vargo, 2010. “Writing for The Liberal.” Mary Shelley: Her Circle and Her Contemporaries. Ed. L. Adam Mekler and Lucy Morrison. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. 131-49.
L. Vargo, 2008. “A Finer Tone: Victorian Lives of Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs.Shelley.” Romantic Echoes in the Victorian Era. Ed. Mark Sandy and Andrew Radford. Aldershot : Ashgate. 15-26.
L. Vargo, 2004. “Women’s Gothic Romance: Writers, Readers, and the Pleasures of the Form.” A Companion to Romance. Ed. Corinne Saunders. Oxford: Blackwells. 233-50.
L. Vargo, 2004. “Mrs. Julian T. Marshall’s Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.” Nervous Reactions. Ed. Joel Faflak and Julia M. Wright. Albany: SUNY P. 47-64.
L. Vargo, 2001. “Further Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: Lodore as an Imagined Conversation with Mary Wollstonecraft.” Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley: Writing Lives. Ed. Helen M. Buss, D. L, Macdonald, and Anne McWhir. Wilfred Laurier P. 177-87.
L. Vargo, 1996. "The Quiet American and 'a Mr. Liebermann,' " in The Quiet American: Text and Criticism. Ed. John Clark Pratt. New York: Penguin Books. 356‑65.
L. Vargo, 1996. "Close Your Eyes and Think of Shelley: Versioning Mary Shelley's Triumph of Life." Evaluating Shelley: Perspectives from the Fin de Siecle. Ed. Jerrold Hogle and Timothy Clark. U of Edinburgh P. 215‑224.
Critical Essays
L.Vargo, 2012. “Hannah More.” “Anna Letitia Barbauld and Fiction.” “Verse Epistle.” “Mary Godwin Shelley.” “Mary Lamb’s Fiction.” “Susanna Blamire.” The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature ed. Frederick Burwick, Nancy Moore Goslee, and Diane Hoeveler. Blackwell Publishing.
L. Vargo, 2002. “Rebekah Carmichael.” and "Mrs. Ryves." Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period. Ed. Nancy Kushigian and Stephen Behrendt. Alexander Street P. (Electronic Archive Critical Anthology).
PAPERS IN REFEREED JOURNALS:
L.Vargo, 2016. "Anna Barbauld and Natural Rights: The Case of 'Inscription for an Ice-House.'" European Romantic Review 27:3, 331-9.
L. Vargo, 2013. “The Romantic Prospects of the Duke of Richmond’s Moose.” European Romantic Review 24.3: 297-305.
L. Vargo, 2009. “(Re)placing a Site of Friendship: Frances Wright and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.” La Questione Romantica, University of Bologna, New Series 1.1: 83-93.
L. Vargo, 2009. “Modes on Communication in Anna Barbauld’s ‘On a Lady’s Writing.’” Lumen 28: 127-37.
L. Vargo, 2008. “Mary Shelley, Corinne, and ‘the mantle of enthusiasm.’” European Romantic Review 19: 171-77.
L. Vargo, 2006. Mary Shelley Studies: From “Author of Frankenstein” to “the great work of life” Literature Compass: Romanticism 3: http://www.blackwell-compass.com
L. Vargo, 2005. “The Aikins and the Godwins: Notions of Conflict and Stoicism in Anna Barbauld and Mary Shelley.” Romanticism 11.1: 84-98.
L. Vargo, 2002. “Tabitha Bramble and the Lyrical Tales.” Women’s Writing. Special Number: Mary Robinson. Ed. Jacqueline Labbe. 9: 37-52.
L. Vargo, 2000. “The Anna Letitia Barbauld Web Page: 1773 Meets 2000.” Romanticism on the Net 19 (August). <http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/19barbauld.html>
L. Vargo, 1999. “Lodore and the ‘novel of society.’” Women’s Writing. Special Number: Mary Shelley. Ed. Marie Mulvey-Roberts and Janet Todd. 6.3: 425-40.
L. Vargo, 1998. "The Case of Anna Laetitia Barbauld's To Mr. Coleridge'." The Charles Lamb Bulletin, New Series No. 102: 55‑63.
L. Vargo, 1998. "An enlargement of home': Anna Jameson and the Representation of Nationalism." Victorian Review 24: 53‑68.
L. Vargo, 1995. "The Claims of `real life and manners': Coleridge and Mary Robinson." The Wordsworth Circle 26:134‑7.
L. Vargo, 1987. "Unmasking Shelley's Mask of Anarchy," English Studies in Canada 13: 49‑64.
L. Vargo, 1984. "The Quiet American and 'a Mr. Liebermann,'" English Language Notes 21: 63‑70.
Selection of Publications (by Year)
- Vargo, L. ""Sa 'lutte solitaire': Mary Shelley's Liberal Authority and the Philosophic Radicals."" In Mary Shelley and Europe: Essays in Honour of Jean de Palacio., edited by Antonella Braida, 71-80. Oxford: Legenda Modern Humanities Research Association, 2021.
- Vargo, L. ""Locating the Common in Charlotte Smith's Writings for Children."" In Placing Charlotte Smith, edited by Jacqueline Labbe and Elizabeth Dolan, 137-157. Bethlehem PA: Lehigh University Press, 2021.
- Vargo, L. ""Male and Female Werthers: Romanticism and Gothic Suicide"" In Suicide and the Gothic, n/a, edited by William Hughes and Andrew Smith, 36-51. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019.
- Vargo, L. ""Mary Shelley, 'The Swiss Peasant,' and The Keepsake"". Wordsworth Circle 48 (2017): 46-52.
- Vargo, L. ""Chapter 2. Contextualizing Sources."" In Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein, edited by Andrew Smith, 26-40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Research
18th Century Anna Barbauld Mary Shelley Romanticism textual editing
Lisa Vargo teaches and researches 18th- and 19th-century literature. She is particularly interested in women writers, especially Mary Shelley and Anna Barbauld. She has published articles on Graham Greene, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Robinson, Anna Barbauld, Mary Shelley, Anna Jameson, hypertext editing, gothic women's fiction, Scottish women writers, 18th-century representations of the moose, Charlotte Smith, and Mathilde Blind. She is the editor of Mary Shelley's Lodore (Broadview Press, 1997) and Thomas Love Peacock's Nightmare Abbey (Broadview Press, 2007). She is co-editor with Allison Muri of an edition of Anna Barbauld's Poems (1773) for Romantic Circles Electronic Editions. Her edition of Mary Shelley's Spanish and Portuguese Lives appears in the 4-volume set Mary Shelley's Literary Lives and Other Writings from Pickering and Chatto. Lisa is Associate Editor (North America) for the journal Women's Writing and is a member of the editorial board for the European Romantic Review. She spent many years as a tutor and volunteer in adult literacy work and served on the board of the Word on the Street (Saskatoon).
Awards & Honours
- Distinguished Professor, awarded by University of Saskatchewan January 2021
- 2017 Distinguished Scholar Award, awarded by Keats-Shelley Association of America USA January 2018
- Distinction in Outreach and Engagement, awarded by University of Saskatchewan June 2007
- Canada Post Literacy Award (Educator Award), awarded by Canada Post September 2004
- Saskatchewan Literacy Award of Merit, awarded by Saskatchewan Literacy Foundation May 1999
- USSU Teaching Excellence Award, awarded by USSU March 1998