Deborah Lutz


Deborah Lutz is an American academic and writer. She is the George and Barbara Kelly Professor in Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature at Pennsylvania State University. Her scholarship focuses on Victorian literature, material culture, the history of sexuality, gender and LGBTQ+ studies, and the history of the book. Lutz has received fellowships from the List of [Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 2023|Guggenheim Foundation], the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Mellon Foundation at the Huntington Library, and the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She is also a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
Lutz received her PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of five books, including The Dangerous Lover, Pleasure Bound, The Brontë Cabinet, Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture, and Victorian Paper Art and Craft. The Brontë Cabinet was shortlisted for the PEN/Weld Award for Biography and has been translated into Spanish and Japanese. She is the editor of two Norton Critical Editions—Jane Eyre and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Her sixth book, This Dark Night: Emily Brontë, A Life, will be published by Norton in May 2026.

Books