Date:
Friday, April 20, 2007.
3:30 PM.<BR/>

Location: Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa Street
Stanford, CA 94305<BR/><BR/>

<p>Max Byrd, an English professor at UC Davis, is a novelist of historical and detective fiction. He will deliver the 15th annual Bliss Carnochan lecture, tentatively titled &#34;Literature's Oldest Profession - The Historical Novel,&#34; which will discuss historical fiction from Homer to Gore Vidal.</p>
<p>Professor Byrd has also formerly taught English at Yale University and was a Visiting Professor at Stanford. He has lectured widely, including at UC Berkeley, Warwick University, and the Sorbonne.</p>
<p>Professor Byrd is the author of a number of scholarly books on 18th-century English literature, including &#34;Visits to Bedlam&#34; and &#34;London Transformed.&#34; He is also author of many detective novels, including the Book-of-the-Month Club selection, &#34;Target of Opportunity.&#34; His historical novels include &#34;Grant: A Novel&#34; and &#34;Shooting the Sun.&#34;</p>
<p>Prof. Byrd is the President of the Board for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and won th &#34;Shamus&#34; Award for best paperback private detective novel. He has also served as Editor of the scholarly journal &#34;Eighteenth-Century Studies.&#34; </p>
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