Claire O’Callaghan is a literary scholar and cultural historian, specialising in Victorian literature and culture, with a particular focus on the lives and works of the Brontës. Her research explores themes of gender, sexuality, and violence, and more recently, health and the body.

Claire has written extensively on the Brontës, especially Emily, and is currently developing several major projects, including studies on the Brontës and tuberculosis, gender and identity in Charlotte Brontë’s writing, and the cultural afterlives of Emily Brontë. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of Brontë Studies, the official journal of the Brontë Society, and works closely with the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Her current collaboration with the Museum involves the transcription and publication of Charlotte Brontë’s Little Book, a long-lost manuscript. She is also preparing a new edition of Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey for Oxford World’s Classics (forthcoming 2027).

Beyond her work on the Brontës, Claire is a leading expert on the novelist Sarah Waters and has published widely on her fiction. She is currently Senior Lecturer in English at Loughborough University, U.K.

Claire is also a regular contributor to television and radio. Her work has featured in The Guardian, History Today, and BBC History online.