Professor Elliot Engel is considered the most insightful, personable, and entertaining academic keynote speaker to come out of academia in the last fifty years. His witty, engaging speaking style imparts hard, factual information, leaving his audiences virtually spellbound, yet charmed by periods of laughter and flashes of insight. Using anecdotes, analysis, and large doses of humor, he gives new insights into the backgrounds, accomplishments, and lives of the great masters of English and American literature.

Published in both Great Britain and the US, Engel is the author of seven books including, A Dab of Dickens & A Touch of Twain: Literary Lives from Shakespeare's Old England to Frost's New England. His articles have appeared in numerous magazines, including Newsweek. As one of the most sought after and beloved speakers on literature, his mini-lecture series on his favorite literary hero, Charles Dickens, appeared on PBS stations nationwide.

As a professor, Engel has taught courses at Duke University, NC State University, and University of North Carolina. For his scholarship and teaching, he has received North Carolina’s Adult Education Award and the Victorian Society Award of Merit.