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• Comment: See WP:BLP. Statements, starting with the date of birth, need to be sourced or removed.
  Sources also need to actually verify statements. For example, the first source, used to verify the statement that the subject is to a professor, goes to the front page of a university website that doesn't even mention the subject. Greenman (talk) 11:56, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Marie Alexis Easley (born 1963) is an American scholar of Victorian literature best known for her research on nineteenth-century women writers, periodicals, celebrity, authorship, and media history. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University of St. Thomas.^[1] in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a former editor of Victorian Periodicals Review^[2]. Easley’s work has contributed significantly to the study of the Victorian era, with a focus on journalism and gender studies.

Alexis Easley was born in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1963. After her parents’ divorce in 1968, Easley moved to West Virginia with her mother and four siblings. In 1981, she graduated from Wheeling Park High School and moved back to Alaska, where she attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks^[3]. There she developed an early interest in creative writing, as well as in British literature and culture. After completing her undergraduate studies in 1985, she pursued graduate work in creative writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, receiving her MFA in 1987. She subsequently taught at the University of Alaska Southeast, Ketchikan^[4] for two years (1988-90) before moving to Oregon for her doctoral studies. In 1998, she received a Ph.D. in Victorian literature from the University of Oregon^[5].

After receiving her doctoral degree, Easley served as assistant professor of English at the University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau^[6] from 2000 to 2005 and taught on the Alaska campus of the Breadloaf School of English^[7] in 2004-5. In 2005, she joined the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), where she served for two decades as a professor of English. At St. Thomas, she taught courses in writing, literature, and Victorian studies, while mentoring students pursuing advanced research in English studies.

Her teaching focused on how literature intersects with  art, journalism, gender studies, and other fields within the discipline of Victorian studies. While at St. Thomas, she published two monographs and over thirty peer-reviewed essays, and she regularly gave keynote addresses at international conferences, including the Australasian Victorian Studies Conference^[8] in 2017. Easley also became a prominent figure in the field of Victorian studies through her service as editor of Victorian Periodicals Review (2012-18), one of the leading scholarly journals in the discipline. Under her leadership, VPR expanded its remit to include a broader range of research on Anglophone periodicals. She has also held several other leadership positions in the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals^[9] (RSVP). Easley retired from full-time teaching in 2025 but continues to write, lecture, and contribute to research in her field. She is currently at work on a biography of Eliza Cook and a collection of primary documents related to Victorian literary celebrity.

Easley’s award-winning scholarship explores intersections between gender, authorship, and print culture during the Victorian era. Her first monograph, First-Person Anonymous: Women Writers and Victorian Print Media, 1840–1870^[10] (2004), published by Ashgate (now Routledge), examines how women authors used anonymous and pseudonymous publication to gain a foothold in the literary marketplace.

Her next monograph, Literary Celebrity, Gender, and Victorian Authorship, 1850–1914^[11] (2011), published by the University of Delaware Press, investigates the role of celebrity, literary tourism, and memorial practices in the history of Victorian authorship.

Her most recent study, New Media and the Rise of the Popular Woman Writer, 1832–60^[12], was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2021. This monograph highlights the integral relationship between the rise of the popular woman writer and the expansion and diversification of newspaper, book, and periodical print media during an era of unprecedented change.

Easley also edited two recent books, Shopping as Comedy: A Victorian Scrapbook^[13] (Routledge, 2024) and British Writers, Popular Literature, and New Media Innovation, 1820–45^[14] (Edinburgh UP, 2024), and co-edited several others, including Women, Periodicals, and Print Culture in Britain^[15] (Edinburgh UP, 2019), The Routledge Handbook to Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals and Newspapers^[16] (Routledge, 2016), and Terrifying Transformations: An Anthology of Victorian Werewolf Fiction^[17] (Valancourt, 2012). Her essays and book chapters have appeared in major academic journals and edited volumes within the disciplines of Victorian literature and media history. She has published essays on Eliza Cook, Harriet Martineau, Christian Isobel Johnstone,  George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Ebenezer Elliott, Frances Browne, and many other writers of the Victorian era. She has also recently published digital articles on Victorian scrapbooks^[18] and media representations of Frederick Douglass’s tour of Britain, 1845-47^[19]

Easley is an innovator in the public humanities, as seen in her COVE electronic edition of Louisa Pirkis’s The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective^[20], her blogs for the Irish Women Writers Network^[21] and Victorian Review^[22]; and her podcasts^[23] on Victorian literary themes for the University of St. Thomas.

Easley’s scholarship is recognized for bringing attention to marginalized or overlooked women writers of the Victorian period and for drawing attention to the complexities and material practices associated with their participation in the literary marketplace. Critical response to her recent book publications highlights her innovative approaches to literary scholarship.

Reviews of New Media and the Rise of the Popular Woman Writer (EUP, 2021), for example, highlight the originality of connecting changes in print media to women’s literary agency. Maria Juko, in Victorian Popular Fictions^[24], notes that Easley demonstrates how the proliferation of print outlets enabled women to become professional writers. Caroline Sumpter, in English Studies^[25], commends the book’s archival depth and “moments of quiet revelation” in its narrative of nineteenth-century print culture.

Reviews of British Writers, Popular Literature, and New Media Innovation, 1820–45 (EUP,  2024) likewise draw attention to its path-breaking contents, which make it required reading for those interested in the history of publishing (Nesvet, Sharp News^[26]; Trzinski, Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies^[27]).

Easley’s work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the  Colby Book Prize^[28] (2017 & 2018 winner; 2020 & 2025 honorable mention) and the Linda H. Peterson Research Grant^[29] (2019) awarded by the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals for outstanding scholarship in Victorian periodicals and print culture.

• Shopping as Comedy: A Victorian Scrapbook (edited facsimile edition). Routledge, 2024.
• British Writers, Popular Literature, and New Media Innovation, 1820–45 (edited essay collection). Edinburgh University Press, 2024.
• New Media and the Rise of the Popular Woman Writer, 1832–60. Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
• Women, Periodicals, and Print Culture in Britain, 1830s–1900s, co-edited with Clare Gill and Beth Rodgers. Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
• Researching the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press: Case Studies, co-edited with Andrew King and John Morton. Routledge, 2017.
• The Routledge Handbook to Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals and Newspapers, co-edited with Andrew King and John Morton. Routledge, 2016.
• Literary Celebrity, Gender, and Victorian Authorship, 1850–1914. University of Delaware Press, 2011.
• Terrifying Transformations: An Anthology of Victorian Werewolf Fiction, co-edited with Shannon Scott. Valancourt, 2012.
• First-Person Anonymous: Women Writers and Victorian Print Media, 1830–70. Ashgate (Routledge), 2004.

Alexis Easley married Brett Fried in 1985. They live together with their two pug dogs in St. Paul, Minnesota.

• Victorian literature
• Media history
• Print culture
• Feminist literary criticism