Michael Shinagel received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he is Senior Lecturer on English and Dean of Continuing Education and University Extension. He has also taught at Cornell University and Union College. He is the author of Daniel Defoe and Middle-Class Gentility, editor of A Concordance to the Poems of Jonathan Swift, and co-editor of Harvard Scholars in English, 1890-1990. His articles and reviews have appeared in various scholarly journals.