abstract:David Nokes FRSL (March 11, 1948 - November 19, 2009) was a scholar of 18th-century English literature known for his biographies of Jonathan Swift, John Gay, Jane Austen and Samuel Johnson. He also penned screenplays, including a BBC adaptation of Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa (1991) and an adaptation of Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996).