Associate Professor in the English department of the Newark campus of Rutgers University, specializing in the English literature of the eighteenth century. Those who have a high tolerance for boredom can peek at my CV, either in its ostentatiously unabridged incarnation or in a slightly more modest shortened version. Those with an even higher tolerance for boredom might look at my musings on a blog, Dull in a New Way. And if you want to make an appointment with me, my calendar will show you when I'm free.
I don't gotta go nowhere or do nothin'. Sabbatical. (Next semester brings an undergraduate course on biography and autobiography in the eighteenth century and a grad course on satire. This semester, though, nothin'.)
Not that I've really learned how to take it easy. As ever, I'm working on too many book projects. Some time in 2009 I hope to finish my facsimile edition of Tristram Shandy, to be accompanied by a huge bibliography of Sterne studies since 1978. I've agreed to edit a collection of essays for Cambridge University Press called Samuel Johnson in Context, and three other book proposals are being evaluated, about which more later. And my next big research project is a biography of Shakespeare forger William Henry Ireland, which should keep me busy for the next few years.
They're all in the works, but I continue to tout some recent books that have already appeared. The most recent addition to the Bibliotheca Lynchiana is The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of "Proper" English, from Shakespeare to South Park, from Walker & Co. (available, of course, from Amazon.com, though the truly virtuous will support independent booksellers). I am, of course, exceedingly chuffed about a prominent review in Salon.
The one before that was a scholarly book on forgery, fakery, and fraud, Deception and Detection in Eighteenth-Century Britain, published by Ashgate in spring 2008 and now available from Amazon.com. More details on my blog. Other recent books include The English Language: A User's Guide, a much revised and expanded version of my on-line guide to grammar and style. It was published by Focus Publishing, and can be had for $12.95 from Amazon.com. The other is Becoming Shakespeare, a popular history of Shakespeare's Nachleben from his death to his three hundredth birthday. It appeared from Walker & Co. in June 2007, available from Amazon.com, and in a UK-and-Commonwealth edition from Constable & Robinson, available from Amazon.co.uk. So far it's received good reviews. The US paperback has just appeared from Walker in February 2009; and the Korean edition (!) is hot off the presses from ChungRim Publishing.
You can also dip into my back catalogue. The US hardcover edition of my abridgment of Johnson's Dictionary should still available from Walker & Company. (A UK hardcover edition is available from Atlantic Books — new jacket, blue highlights instead of green, and no pussycats — a serious loss, that — but it's the same text. UK-niks can order it dirt-cheap, just fourteen quid, from Amazon.co.uk.) It's a bargain at twice the price, so buy two. And I'm also flogging a just-for-fun little squib, Samuel Johnson's Insults, also available from Amazon.com in hardcover and paperback. There's also a UK-and-Commonwealth edition available from Amazon.co.uk.
That's all on the trade side. In more scholarly publishing, Cambridge University Press published Anniversary Essays on Johnson's "Dictionary," edited by Yr Humble Svt and Anne McDermott, on 15 April 2005, the 250th anniversary of the Dictionary's original publication. (Okay, I confess: it's mostly an excuse for me to drop the word sestercentenary into conversation.) It's now available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. And Cambridge has just released a paperback, also available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (at almost affordable prices!).
I boasted when my first scholarly monograph, The Age of Elizabeth in the Age of Johnson, zoomed up to the 1.5 millionth bestseller on Amazon.com, leaving Distributional Ecology and Abundance of Dung and Carrion-Feeding Beetles (Scarabaeidae) in Tropical Rain Forests in Sarawak, Borneo in the dust at a pitiful number 1.596 million. But a recent check showed it at number 320,499, which is as close to "bestseller" as a professor of eighteenth-century literature is ever likely to see. I've decided, therefore, that I'm now a real-live celebrity, and will no longer waste my time talking with little people like you. I will, however, offer eight-by-ten head-shots, autographed by someone on my staff, for a modest fee.
In case this isn't enough, I edit a 500-page journal every year. From 1998 to 2005 I was Joint Editor, with Paul J. Korshin, of The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual. Paul's untimely death in March '05 means the journal is now all mine. Volume 17 appeared in September 2006; a special volume, vol. 18, containing memorial essays to Paul, appeared in February 2008 with a 2007 date on the cover). The most recent to appear is vol. 19, while vol. 20 is in the works.
The Jack Lynch World Tour continues: in August through October 2009 I was in Boston, upstate New York, London, Oxford, Paris, Turin, Florence, and Venice. All this at a time when the dollar is at a quarter-century low — nice goin', Jacko. It's a good thing English professors are paid so extravagantly.
The list of courses I've taught was getting too long for this page, so I've moved it all to another page.
All my classes (and anyone who's curious) are encouraged to consult my guide to grammar and style, my in-progress guide called "Getting an A on an English Paper," and my very rough and incomplete guide to literary terms.
A few chunks of my dissertation are available on-line — but really, would it kill you to pony up the dough for The Age of Elizabeth in the Age of Johnson? And as I find the time to post papers I've delivered, they'll appear on their own page.
I've collected some miscellaneous links, some of them as close to fun as a downtrodden professor is allowed to get.
Please feel free contact me with questions, comments, requests, and recommendations. E-mail is easiest. You can also write to
Jack Lynch
Department of English
Rutgers University
360 M. L. King Blvd.
Newark, N.J. 07102
My office phone is (973) 353-5204, but I check my voice mail only from the office, so it's an unreliable way of reaching me, especially when classes aren't in session.
Some general notes about these pages might make some things clear; you're encouraged to check them out before you contact me.