Diane Purkiss

Diane Purkiss is an Australian historian, and Fellow and Tutor of English at Keble College, Oxford. She specialises in Renaissance and women's literature, witchcraft and the English Civil War.
Purkiss was born in Sydney, New South Wales, and was educated at Roseville College, Our Lady of the Rosary Convent, and Stuartholme School. She received a BA with first class Honours from the University of Queensland and D.Phil. from Merton College, Oxford. She became a lecturer in English at the University of East Anglia in 1991, and lecturer in English at the University of Reading in 1993. In 1998, she became a Professor of English at Exeter University, before taking up her current post at Keble College in 2000.

Publications

As author:The Witch in History: Early Modern and Late Twentieth Century Representations Troublesome Things: a history of fairies and fairy stories Literature, Gender, and Politics during the English Civil War The English Civil War: A People's History .English Food: A People's History .
As editor:Women, Texts and Histories 1575-1760, with Clare BrantRenaissance Women: Elizabeth Cary's Tragedie of Mariam and Edward II and Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaorum Three Tragedies by Renaissance Women, an edition of Iphigeneia at Aulis, by Lady Jane Lumley, The Tragedie of Antonie, by Lady Mary Sidney, The Tragedy of Mariam, by Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland
Purkiss also wrote children's books with her daughter, Alice Druitt, under the pseudonym Tobias Druitt.