David Liss was born in 1966 and grew up in south Florida. He is currently a doctoral candidate in the English department at Columbia University, where he is completing his dissertation on how the mid-eighteenth-century novel reflects and shapes the emergence of the modern idea of personal finance. He has given numerous conference papers on his research and has also published on Henry James. He has received several awards for his work, including the Columbia President’s Fellowship, an A. W. Mellon Research Fellowship, and the Whiting Dissertation Fellowship. He holds an M.A. from Georgia State University and a B.S. from Syracuse University. Liss lives in New York City with his wife and can be reached via his Web site, www.davidliss.com