He then moved to Royal Holloway, University of London, where he was employed as a professor of French Language and Literature and successively as Head of department, Dean of the Graduate School and Vice-Principal.
His main interest is late 19th century France and specifically the relationship between literature and visual arts in that period.
[1] Between 2001 and 2006 he was Honorary President of the Society of Dix-neuvièmistes, a group founded in Dublin in 2001, mainly comprising British and Irish academics with an interest in 19th century France.
[1] In 2012 he was appointed a Commander of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, chivalric order established in 1955 for services to French culture and scholarship,[4] having been an Ordinary member since 1988.
He called critics "lazy" and "uninformed", and told the Daily Telegraph that there was a problem with a mindset which "doesn't want anyone to fail".