Charles Lynn Batten

Lynn Batten came to UCLA in 1969 after receiving a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Although his research interests focus on British literature from 1660 to 1800, he has taught a wide spectrum of courses ranging from freshman composition and Shakespeare surveys to graduate courses in bibliography and literary criticism. In addition, he has taught the Bible as literature. He recently appeared on two programs in A&E's series, Mysteries of the Bible. A recipient of UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award, Lynn lives in Woodland Hills with his wife Anne.

He is addicted to travel: one of his goals in life is to circle the globe entirely on the surface, and he has just about succeeded. Until recently, he drove a 1969 VW bug that had accumulated more mileage than the distance from the earth to the moon.

From 1986 to 1988, he served as Director of UCLA Writing Programs. He has more recently been Vice Chairman of the English Department.

He is the author of Pleasurable Instruction: Form and Convention in Eighteenth-Century Travel Literature and the editor of Pamela Censured, the first published attack on Samuel Richardson. He is currently trying to finish a long-promised study of deism, natural religion, and the rhetoric of religious and literary controversy in the eighteenth century.