William Baker
University Libraries and the Department of English

Brilliant bibliophile

William Baker has made an impressive career of his love of books and the stories behind the creation of works of literature.

His research is internationally acclaimed in four areas: descriptive bibliographies that trace and describe the history of a book from its genesis to published formats; reconstruction of authors' libraries and the whereabouts of their books; interpretation of contemporary British drama; and literary discovery, including editing authors’ letters.

“His scholarship in all these fields is widely known and admired,” says James L. Harner, Professor of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University.

Baker holds a joint appointment with University Libraries and NIU’s Department of English. He has published more than two dozen books and discovered the forgotten notes, notebooks, letters and manuscripts of eminent 19th century writers, including George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, Wilkie Collins and Sir Walter Scott.

Baker is considered the foremost biographer and a leading scholar on the works of George Eliot, the pen name for Victorian writer Mary Ann Evans, who was among the most important British novelists of the 19th century. Baker also co-authored a prize-winning bibliographical history on Nobel Prize-winning playwright and poet Harold Pinter and an award-winning four-volume set on “The Letters of Wilkie Collins.” Collins was a British writer who helped invent the detective novel.

Baker is a favorite among NIU students as well, and he provides them with opportunities to publish their own research.

“I have never come across a professor of such wide-reaching connections, especially internationally, and a professor who gifts his students through those connections to meaningful and impressive work,” says NIU Ph.D. candidate Linda Reinert, who has co-authored scholarly work with Baker.