Dr Laura Eastlake

  • James Murray Beattie Lecturer in Victorian Literature (English Literature)
  • Affiliate (School of Critical Studies)

Biography

I joined the University of Glasgow as James Murray Beattie Lecturer in Victorian Literature in 2024. Before that I was Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Edge Hill University and founding Co-Director of EHU Nineteen Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies. I hold an MA, MLitt and PhD from the University of Glasgow.

Research interests

  • Reception Studies
  • Victorian Masculinities 
  • Substance Histories - particularly sugar
  • Victorian Gothic and Sensation Fiction

My research focuses on receptions and legacies. I am interested in how the Victorians looked to certain pasts (particularly the classical world) to articulate their present, and how legacies of the nineteenth century continue to shape our culture, society and health today. 

My book, Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity (Oxford University Press, 2019) uncovered how Victorian writers and artists looked to the ancient Roman world to construct models of masculinity. My most recent article explores how volcanos—particularly the excavations at Pompeii—have shaped the history of Gothic fiction. 

I have worked with museums including the Burrell Collection in Glasgowand the Atkinson in Southport, engaging audiences with different aspects of Victorian culture. As Honorary Research Fellow with the Atkinson I have curated exhibitions including:

  • Dr Jekyll's Study: Science and Medicine in the Nineteenth Century.
  • 'We Are Not Amused', which challenged the perception of the Victorians as po-faced and humourless.
  • 'Fatal Attraction', which examined the long history of the ‘femme fatale’ from the ancient world to the silver screen.

My current research explores Britain’s cultural relationships with refined sugar from the nineteenth century to the present. I am interested in how sugar got into Britain's cultural bloodstreams as well as our literal ones in the century which gave rise to habits and health problems that continue with us today. 

Research groups

  • Victorian

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014
Number of items: 14.

2025

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2025) The volcano and the vampire: the case for a volcanic gothic. Gothic Studies, 27(1), pp. 58-77. (doi: 10.3366/gothic.2025.0217)

Small, Douglas R.J. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2545-2444 and Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2025) ‘Our house came alive to shelter us’: happy gothic trauma and magical maturation in Disney’s Encanto. Screen, (Accepted for Publication)

2023

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2023) Sugar. Victorian Literature and Culture, 51(3), pp. 515-518. (doi: 10.1017/S1060150323000074)

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2023) The Sculptural Body in Victorian Literature: Encrypted Sexualities, by Patricia Pulham; pp. x + 226. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020, $110.00, £75.00. Victorian Studies, 65(2), pp. 333-335. (doi: 10.2979/vic.2023.a911124)[Book Review]

2022

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2022) The history of four festive sweets – from familiar favourites to the downright dangerous. Conversation, 20 Dec.

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2022) Are you not entertained?: Hollywood’s golden age was born of the popularity of swords and sandals on the Victorian stage. History Today, 72(5),

2021

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2021) Playing cute: sensation villainy and the aesthetics of small things in The Woman in White and Lady Audley’s Secret. Journal of Victorian Culture, 26(4), pp. 568-581. (doi: 10.1093/jvcult/vcab042)

2019

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2019) Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity. Series: Classical presences. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198833031

2018

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2018) Review of Holly Furneaux, Military Men of Feeling: Masculinity, Emotion and Tactility in the Crimean War (Oxford University Press, 2016). Wilkie Collins Journal, [Book Review]

2017

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2017) ‘Antique Fiction’ and the forgotten legacies of Ancient Rome in Wilkie Collins’s Antonina. Classical Receptions Journal, 9(2), pp. 193-210. (doi: 10.1093/crj/clw007)

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2017) Review of Molly Youngkin’s British Women Writers and the Reception of Ancient Egypt, 1840-1910 (Palgrave, 2016). English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 60(4), pp. 534-538. [Book Review]

2016

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2016) Metropolitan manliness: Ancient Rome, Victorian London, and the rhetoric of the new, 1880–1914. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 59(4), pp. 473-492.

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2016) Review of Laura Monros-Gaspar, Victorian Classical Burlesques: A Critical Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2015). Classics Ireland, 23-24, pp. 154-158. [Book Review]

2014

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2014) Review of Bradley Deane’s Masculinity and the New Imperialism: Rewriting Manhood in British Popular Literature, 1870-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Nineteenth Century Gender Studies, 10(3), p. 273. [Book Review]

This list was generated on Fri Jul 11 22:14:00 2025 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Reviews
Number of items: 14.

Articles

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2025) The volcano and the vampire: the case for a volcanic gothic. Gothic Studies, 27(1), pp. 58-77. (doi: 10.3366/gothic.2025.0217)

Small, Douglas R.J. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2545-2444 and Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2025) ‘Our house came alive to shelter us’: happy gothic trauma and magical maturation in Disney’s Encanto. Screen, (Accepted for Publication)

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2023) Sugar. Victorian Literature and Culture, 51(3), pp. 515-518. (doi: 10.1017/S1060150323000074)

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2022) The history of four festive sweets – from familiar favourites to the downright dangerous. Conversation, 20 Dec.

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2022) Are you not entertained?: Hollywood’s golden age was born of the popularity of swords and sandals on the Victorian stage. History Today, 72(5),

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2021) Playing cute: sensation villainy and the aesthetics of small things in The Woman in White and Lady Audley’s Secret. Journal of Victorian Culture, 26(4), pp. 568-581. (doi: 10.1093/jvcult/vcab042)

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2017) ‘Antique Fiction’ and the forgotten legacies of Ancient Rome in Wilkie Collins’s Antonina. Classical Receptions Journal, 9(2), pp. 193-210. (doi: 10.1093/crj/clw007)

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2016) Metropolitan manliness: Ancient Rome, Victorian London, and the rhetoric of the new, 1880–1914. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 59(4), pp. 473-492.

Books

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2019) Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity. Series: Classical presences. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198833031

Book Reviews

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2023) The Sculptural Body in Victorian Literature: Encrypted Sexualities, by Patricia Pulham; pp. x + 226. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020, $110.00, £75.00. Victorian Studies, 65(2), pp. 333-335. (doi: 10.2979/vic.2023.a911124)[Book Review]

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2018) Review of Holly Furneaux, Military Men of Feeling: Masculinity, Emotion and Tactility in the Crimean War (Oxford University Press, 2016). Wilkie Collins Journal, [Book Review]

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2017) Review of Molly Youngkin’s British Women Writers and the Reception of Ancient Egypt, 1840-1910 (Palgrave, 2016). English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 60(4), pp. 534-538. [Book Review]

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2016) Review of Laura Monros-Gaspar, Victorian Classical Burlesques: A Critical Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2015). Classics Ireland, 23-24, pp. 154-158. [Book Review]

Eastlake, Laura ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2513-2176 (2014) Review of Bradley Deane’s Masculinity and the New Imperialism: Rewriting Manhood in British Popular Literature, 1870-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Nineteenth Century Gender Studies, 10(3), p. 273. [Book Review]

This list was generated on Fri Jul 11 22:14:00 2025 BST.

Grants

  • Being Human Grant, ‘We Are Not Amused’ - Laughter in the Nineteenth Century. 2019.
  • Alcohol Research UK Networking Grant, ‘Substance Use and Abuse in the Long Nineteenth Century’. 2019. 
  • Past and Present Society Small Grant, ‘Substance Use and Abuse in the Long Nineteenth Century’. 2018.
  • Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellowship, Harry Ransom Centre, University of Austin, Texas. 2016.

Supervision

I am available to discuss potential PhD or masters projects in Victorian literature, classical receptions, nineteenth century masculinity, Victorian Gothic and Sensation Fiction.

I have previously supervised PGR projects on topics including:

  • Forgeries and invented art in fiction (jointly with Creative Writing)
  • The seaside resort in the nineteenth-century imagination
  • Fantastic beasts and where to print them: monsters and mythical creatures in the Victorian press
  • Representations of hands in Victorian popular fiction
  • Spartacus in fiction and film

Teaching

Semester 1

  • 2A: Writing Ecologies (Convener)
  • Literary Theories

Semester 2

  • 1B: Critical Skill-Making - The Study of the Novel
  • 2B: Writing the Body
  • Literature 1830-1914

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