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Outcomes: What can the course help you achieve?

Our students go into various areas after studying with us often in: 

  • Publishing 
  • Research and Further Study 
  • Teaching 
  • Writing 

Alumni from our department have included: 

The historian and author, Kate Williams, who completed an MA in the Department in 1999. Her first book England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton, published in 2006, was Book of the Week on Radio 4, a Book of the Year in The Times and The Independent, and shortlisted for the Marsh Prize for Biography. Her second book Becoming Queen, about the passionate youth of Queen Victoria and Princess Charlotte, was published in 2008. Kate's most recent novel, The Pleasures of Men, was published in 2012. 

Award-winning author Sarah Waters who did her PhD in English Literature in 1995. She has written several novels, including Tipping the Velvet (1998), Fingersmith (2003), and The Night Watch (2006). Fingersmith was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. 

The writer JG Ballard (1930-2009) who enrolled on an English Literature degree at Queen Mary College in 1951. Ballard was an acclaimed writer of novels and short stories, and his most notable works include the controversial Crash (1973) and the semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun (1984), both of which were turned into films directed by David Cronenberg and Steven Spielberg respectively. 

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