Michael O'Neill is a well-known critic of poetry whose writings include monographs on Shelley (1989), Romanticism and the self-conscious poem (1997) and the twentieth- and twenty-first century literary legacies of Romantic poetry (2007). He edited the Cambridge History of English Poetry (2010) and a much-praised anthology of Romantic poetry with detailed comments on poetic form (2008). He has published two collections of poems and received a Cholmondeley Award for Poets in 1990. His work has been celebrated by many critics for its sensitivity to poetry and its ability to find an answerable language for poetic effects.