Ross Murfin, E. A. Lilly Distinguished Professor of English and former provost at Southern Methodist University, has also taught at the University of Virginia, Yale University, and the University of Miami, where he was the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences until 1996. He is the author of Swinburne, Lawrence, Hardy, and the Burden of Belief (1978); The Poetry of D. H. Lawrence: Texts and Contexts (1983); Sons and Lovers: A Novel of Division and Desire (1987); and Lord Jim: After the Truth (1992); and the editor of Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties (1983). The series editor of Bedford/St. Martins popular Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism, he has also edited two volumes in the series, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (Third Edition, forthcoming 2011) and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (Second Edition, 2006).