Peter Lake completed his undergraduate degree and PhD at Cambridge University and taught subsequently at Bedford College, Royal Holloway, Bedford New College, London, Cornell, and Princeton. He moved to Vanderbilt University in 2008. When in London he is an habitual attender of seminars at the Institute of Historical Research, and has been the grateful beneficiary of extended stints at both the Folger Shakespeare and Huntington Libraries.
Lake takes into account print, gossip and news, and so gives subtlety and depth to his reconstruction of political debate and discussion in the otherwise highly controlled conditions of suppression and censorship under Elizabeth Stephen Alford, London Review of Books a fresh and arresting perspective ... Stephen Alford, London Review of Books a fascinating and enlightening read, from which many general lessons about human behaviour can be derived Peter Costello, Irish Catholic This is a valuable account of how political debate acquired new levels of venom, with searching analysis of the printed books, manuscript treatises, plays and rumours in which these secret histories were deployed. Lucy Wooding, Times Higher Education