Roger Pearson is an emeritus professor of French at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and an emeritus fellow of

The Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault, queen of England. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassi ...

. His research focuses on eighteenth and nineteenth century French literature and has worked particularly on

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

Stendhal Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, , ), was a French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' ('' The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de Parme'' ('' T ...

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...

Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, celebrated as a master of the short story, as well as a representative of the naturalist school, depicting human lives, destinies and s ...

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...

and

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

. Pearson has also worked as a French to English translator. Pearson did his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at

Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and the fourth-oldest college of the university. The college was founde ...

. He then became a College Lecturer at The Queen's College in October 1973. In 1977 he became a full University Lecturer and was appointed professor in 1997. In 2005 he was appointed Officer in the

Ordre des Palmes Académiques A suite, in Western classical music, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes; and grew in scope so that by the early 17th century it comprised up to ...

by the French government and he was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2009. Pearson's book ''Mallarmé and Circumstance: The Translation of Silence'' was awarded the 2005 R. H. Gapper Book Prize by the UK

Society for French Studies The Society for French Studies, or SFS, is the oldest learned association for French Studies in the UK and Ireland. It aims to promote teaching and research in French Studies within higher education. the president is Professor Judith Still. S ...

. This prize recognises the work as the best book published by a scholar working in Britain or Ireland in French studies in 2004. He won the Gapper Prize again in 2017 for his book ''Unacknowledged Legislators: The Poet as Lawgiver in Post-Revolutionary France''.

Publications

Authored Books * ''Stendhal's Violin: A Novelist and his Reader'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) * ''The Fables of Reason: A Study of Voltaire's 'contes philosophiques (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) * ''Unfolding Mallarmé: The Development of a Poetic Art'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) * ''Mallarmé and Circumstance: The Translation of Silence'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004) * ''Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom'' (London: Bloomsbury, 2005) * ''Stéphane Mallarmé'' (London: Reaktion Books, 2010) * ''Unacknowledged Legislators: The Poet as Lawgiver in Post-Revolutionary France: Chateaubriand – Staël – Lamartine – Hugo – Vigny'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) * ''The Beauty of Baudelaire: The Poet as Alternative Lawgiver'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021) Translations * Zola, ''

La Bête humaine (English: ''The Beast Within'' or ''The Beast in Man'' or ''The Monomaniac'') is an 1890 novel by Émile Zola. It is the seventeenth book in Zola's '' Les Rougon-Macquart'' series. The story focuses on the lives and violent passions of railway w ...

'', Oxford World's Classics (Oxford University Press, 1996) * Zola, '' Germinal'', Penguin Classics (London: Penguin, 2004) * Voltaire, ''Candide and Other Stories'', Oxford World's Classics (Oxford University Press, 2006) * Maupassant, ''

Une Vie ('One Life') also known as ('The Humble Truth') and often translated as ''A Woman's Life'', is the first novel written by Guy de Maupassant. It was serialised in 1883 in the ''Gil Blas'', then published in book form the same year as . It was ...

'', Oxford World's Classics (Oxford University Press, 1999)

External links

Pearson's Page at the University of Oxford

Pearson's page at the Queen's College, Oxford

Notes and references

Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford Fellows of the Queen's College, Oxford Academics of the University of Oxford English literary critics Literary critics of French Translators of Émile Zola Officiers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques French–English translators British translators Year of birth missing (living people) Living people {{UK-translator-stub