Peter Conrad (born 1948) is an Australian-born academic specialising in English literature, who taught at Christ Church at the University of Oxford. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Conrad was born in Hobart, Tasmania, and attended Hobart High School. After graduating from the University of Tasmania in 1968, Conrad went to Oxford University, UK, on a Rhodes Scholarship, studying at New College. He became a fellow of All Souls College from 1970 to 1973 before taking up his current post at Christ Church. There he taught English from 1973 and has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and at Williams College, and a guest lecturer throughout the United States. By 2018 he had retired.
Books in order of publication:
The Victorian Treasure-House. London: Collins. 1973
Romantic Opera and Literary Form, Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978
Shandyism: The Character of Romantic Irony, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978
Imagining America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1980
Television: The Medium and its Manners, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982
The Art of the City: Views and Versions of New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984
The Everyman History of English Literature, London: J. M. Dent, 1985
A Song of Love and Death: The Meaning of Opera, New York: Poseidon Press, 1987
Behind the Mountain: Return to Tasmania, London: Chatto & Windus, 1988
Where I Fell to Earth: A Life in Four Cities, New York: Poseidon Press, 1990
Underworld, Simon & Schuster, 1992
Modern Times, Modern Places: Life and Art in the Twentieth Century, Thames & Hudson, 1999
The Hitchock Murders, Faber and Faber, 2002
At Home in Australia, Thames & Hudson, 2003
Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life, Faber and Faber, 2004
Creation: Artists, Gods & Origins, Thames & Hudson, 2007
How the World Was Won: The Americanization of Everywhere. Thames & Hudson. 2014
Verdi and/or Wagner: Two Men, Two Worlds, Two Centuries, Thames & Hudson, 2014
Mythomania: Tales of Our Times, Thames & Hudson, 2016
Shakespeare: The Theatre of Our World, Head of Zeus, 2018
The Mysteries of Cinema: Movies and Imagination, Thames & Hudson, 2021
Dickens the Enchanter: Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller –
2025
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