Richard York was educated at Kettering Grammar School, Emmanuel College Cambridge and University College London. Since 1969 he has been teaching French and European Studies at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, where he is now Professor of European Literature. His research interest is chiefly in the form and structure of literature, and especially in the way recent theories of language, communication and structure can illuminate works of fiction or verse. His major publications are: The Poem as Utterance, 1986, Strangers and Secrets, communication in the nineteenth century novel, 1994, The Rules of Time, 1999, The Extension of Life, fiction and history in the American novel, 2003.