Dr Lucy Andrew

Senior Lecturer in English Literature

School for the Creative Industries
Dr Lucy Andrew

I am a Senior Lecturer in English Literature working in the subject areas of English Literature and Creative Writing.

I completed my BA and PhD at Cardiff University and my MLitt at Newcastle University. My PhD focused on boy detectives in early British children’s literature. I taught modules on crime fiction, children’s literature and young adult fiction at Cardiff University before joining the University of Chester in 2017, based at University Centre Shrewsbury.

My research specialisms are in children’s literature, young adult fiction, crime fiction, creative writing, comics and graphic novels, popular culture and fan studies.

Modules that I currently teach on and/or convene include:

  • EN5025 Children’s Literature: Genres, Forms, Functions
  • EN6033 Young Adult Fiction

Modules that I have previously taught on and/or convened:

  • EN4401 An Introduction to English Literature
  • EN4402 Ways of Reading
  • EN5407 Children’s Literature: Genres, Forms, Functions
  • EN5408 Criminal Fictions
  • EN5409 Careers in Literature
  • EN6033 Crime, Deviance and Subversion
  • EN6401 Dissertation
  • EN6402 The Writing Project
  • EN6405 Popular Fictions: Literature and Film
  • EN6411 Young Adult Fiction

Postgraduate supervision

I have supervised MRes and PhD students working on creative writing, crime fiction and young adult fiction. I welcome enquiries about research projects on:

  • Children’s literature
  • Young adult fiction
  • Crime fiction
  • Creative writing (in children’s literature, young adult fiction and crime fiction)
  • Comics and graphic novels
  • Fan studies
  • Popular fiction and popular culture

I would particularly welcome enquiries on projects in the following areas: children’s or young adult crime/detective fiction; Harry Potter, Batman (and Robin); Nancy Drew; Jack the Ripper and his victims; sidekicks in crime fiction; Jane Austen retellings.

My main areas of research are in children’s and young adult literature, crime fiction and popular culture from the nineteenth century to the present day. My research into these areas extends to comics and graphic novels, film and television and fandom. I have a particular interest in children’s and young adult crime fiction and my first monograph focused on the British boy detective.

I am also a creative writer and I have been shortlisted for the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers’ Prize 2022-23: Crime & Thriller for my novel Harriet Smith and the Homicidal Heir, a cosy crime retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma.

I have presented my research on radio (BBC Radio Shropshire; BBC Radio Berkshire; 2ser), television (Invitation au Voyage (ARTE); Murder Maps (3DD productions)) and podcasts (Rippercast: The Jack the Ripper Podcast; Film Class; Death of the Reader; The Shrewsbury Biscuit Podcast).

Monograph

Lucy Andrew, The Boy Detective in Early British Children’s Literature: Patrolling the Borders between Boyhood and Manhood (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

Edited Collections

Lucy Andrew and Catherine Phelps (eds), Crime Fiction in the City: Capital Crimes (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013).

Lucy Andrew and Victoria Margree (eds), Victorian Popular Fictions Journal, Special issue on the Victorian short story, 2.2 (Autumn 2020).

Lucy Andrew and Samuel Saunders (eds), The Detective’s Companion in Crime Fiction: A Study in Sidekicks (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2021).

Journal Articles

Lucy Andrew, ‘“Away with dark shadders!” Juvenile Detection Versus Juvenile Crime in The Boy Detective; or, The Crimes of London. A Romance of Modern Times’, Clues: A Journal of Detection, 30.1 (Spring 2012), 18-29.

Lucy Andrew, ‘“Be Prepared!” (But Not Too Prepared): Scouting, Soldiering and Boys’ Roles in World War I’, Boyhood StudiesAn Interdisciplinary Journal, 11.1 (Spring 2018), 47-62.

Lucy Andrew, ‘Silence is Golden: John William Bobin’s Sylvia Silence and the Emergence of the British Girl Detective in Golden-Age Crime Fiction’, special edition of Studies in Crime Writing, ed. Sarah Martin, Jamie Bernthal and Stefano Seraphini, 4 (2023).

Book Chapters

Lucy Andrew, ‘“Exspecta Inexspectata”: The Rise of the Supernatural in Hybrid Detective Series for Young Readers’, in Jean Anderson, Carolina Miranda and Barbara Pezzotti (eds), Serial Crime Fiction: Dying for More (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 219-230.

Lucy Andrew, ‘Veronica Mars: Neptune, Nostalgia and New Media’, in Rachel Franks and Alistair Rolls (eds), Crime Uncovered: Private Investigator (Bristol: Intellect Publishing, 2016), pp. 58-67.

Lucy Andrew, ‘Dark Marks, Curse Scars and Corporal Punishment: Crime and the Function of Bodily Marks in the Harry Potter Series’, in Katharine Cox and Kate Watson (eds), Tattoos in Crime and Detective Narratives (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019).

Lucy Andrew, ‘‘‘I’m gonna be the best friend you could ever hope for—and the worst enemy you could ever imagine.’: Frank Miller’s All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder and the Problem of the Boy Sidekick in the Twenty-First-Century Superhero Narrative’, in Lucy Andrew and Samuel Saunders (eds), The Detective’s Companion in Crime Fiction: A Study in Sidekicks (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2021).

Encyclopaedia Entries

Lucy Andrew, ‘The Boy Detective’, in Sujuta Moorti and Karen Ross (eds), The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication (London: Wiley, 2020).

Lucy Andrew, ‘Enid Blyton’, ‘John William Bobin’, ‘Edwy Searles Brooks’, ‘Anthony Horowitz’, ‘Justin Richards’ and ‘Malcolm Rose’, in Esme Miskimmin (ed.), 100 British Crime Writers (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Conference Proceedings

Lucy Andrew, ‘A Band of Light amongst the Shadows: The Boy Detective and the “Penny-Dreadful” Controversy of the 1860s’, in Conflicts and Controversies: Challenging Children’s Literature (Shenstone: Pied Piper Publishing, 2011), pp. 74-83.

Lucy Andrew, ‘Riddles in the Dark: The Role of Poetry in Children’s Fantasy Novels from Alice to Harry Potter’, It Doesn’t have to Rhyme: Children and Poetry (Shenstone: Pied Piper Publishing, 2012).

Lucy Andrew, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Malfoys: The Role of Free Will in the Creation of the Criminal Child in the Harry Potter Series’, in L. Ciolfi and G. O’Brien (eds), Magic is Might 2012: Proceedings of the International Conference (Sheffield: Sheffield Hallam University, 2013), pp. 59-66.

Book Reviews

Lucy Andrew, ‘Roald Dahl: New Casebooks’, in Bridget Carrington and Pat Pinsent (eds), The Final Chapters: Concluding Papers of ‘The Journal of Children’s Literature Studies’ (Trowbridge: Wizard’s Tower Press, 2013).

Lucy Andrew, ‘Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder. Scholars and Creators on 75 Years of Robin, Nightwing and Batman’, Journal of Popular Culture, 49.4 (August 2016), 938-41.

  • BA (Hons) in English Literature, Cardiff University
  • MLitt in Children’s Literature, Newcastle University
  • PhD in English Literature, Cardiff University
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy