Heather Neilson holds a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Oxford for a dissertation on the subject of the uses of history in Gore Vidal's fiction. She has been a coeditor of the Australasian Journal of American Studies, and president of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association. She has previously taught at the University of Melbourne, the University of Sydney and the University of Western Australia. Dr Neilson is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of New South Wales, Canberra campus.

Heather Neilson is one of the most gifted, cleareyed readers of Gore Vidal that we have. She reads not only the sentences but sees through them, ushering us gently toward a fresh understanding of this controversial, often misunderstood writer. -- Jay Parini, D.E. Axinn Professor of English and Creative Writing, Middlebury College

The most significant monograph on Vidal's archive of political and historical writing. -- Donald E. Pease Jnr, Professor of English and Comparative Literature and The Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities, Dartmouth