Jonathan’s scholarship and criticism covers a wide spectrum of English and American literature. His most notable work in the field of modern poetry is the major biography, Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life (William Collins UK; HarperCollins USA; Fourth Estate Australia, 2015). Selected as a Book of the Year in nine national newspapers, it was chosen by the Biographers International Organization as the best biography of 2015 in the category of Arts & Literature, and was runner-up for the Samuel Johnson Prize.
In Bright Star, Green Light (William Collins UK, Yale UP USA, 2021), he has explored the life and work of F. Scott Fitzgerald in parallel with the achievement of John Keats, who inspired the novelist with far more than just the title of Tender is the Night.
His wide-ranging English Literature: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2010) has been translated into several languages, including Arabic and Chinese. Jonathan’s work as an advocate for the continuing importance of the arts and humanities in the modern world led to an edited collection of essays called The Public Value of the Humanities, published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2011.
