Graham Allen is Professor of English at University College, Cork, Ireland. He is author of Harold Bloom: A Poetics of Conflict, Roland Barthes (Routledge Critical Thinkers), Mary Shelley, The Reader's Guide to 'Frankenstein', and editor of The Salt Companion to Harold Bloom (with Roy Sellers) and Reading on Audience and Textual Materiality (with Carrie Griffin and Mary O'Connell).