Phillip Mallett is honorary senior lecturer in English at the University of St Andrews, a vice president of the Thomas Hardy Society, and an honorary fellow of both the Centro Universitario di Studi Vittoriani e Edoardiani and the French Association for Thomas Hardy Studies. He was the editor of the Thomas Hardy Journal from 2008 to 2018. His published work includes?Rudyard Kipling: A Literary Life; eight edited collections of essays, including?Thomas Hardy in Context?and?The Victorian Novel and Masculinity; Norton Critical Editions of?The Return of the Native and?The Mayor of Casterbridge; and?editions of Under the Greenwood Tree and Flora Thompson’s?Lark Rise to Candleford?for Oxford World’s Classics.