Nicholas White is a specialist in nineteenth-century French literature, with a particular interest in the issues of war, friendship, love, marriage, and the family, and in the methods of cultural and literary history.  In addition to writing on a wide range of late nineteenth-century novelists, he has authored or edited ten book-length publications. In particular, he is the author of French Divorce Fiction from the Revolution to the First World War and of The Family in Crisis in Late Nineteenth-Century French Fiction. He is now engaged on a book project on the 'war before the First World War': in other words, the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune (1870-71). He  is currently working with Dr Marion Glaumaud-Carbonnier on an EU-funded Marie Curie research project (2020-23) on The Family at War in French Culture, 1870-1914. He was the Principal Investigator of the AHRC-sponsored network on ‘The Art of Friendship in France, 1789-1914’, and of the Cambridge-Paris Sciences & Lettres network entitled ‘Zola au pluriel’.  He was one of the founding editors of Dix-Neuf, the journal of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes, and reviews editor for H-France, and has edited special numbers for the French journal Les Cahiers naturalistes and, twice, for the American journal Romanic Review.

Professor White welcomes inquiries from potential MPhil and PhD students with research interests relevant to his interests.