Christopher Lane, a British-American literary critic and intellectual historian, is Professor of English and the Pearce Miller Research Professor of Literature at Northwestern University. Known for his work on 19th- and 20th-century literature and psychology, he has secondary expertise in Victorian psychology, psychiatry, and intellectual history.

Born and educated in London, Lane received his PhD from the University of London. He is the author of five books on literature and psychology: The Ruling Passion (Duke, 1995), The Burdens of Intimacy (Chicago, 1999), Hatred and Civility: The Antisocial Life in Victorian England (Columbia, 2004), and Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness (Yale trade, 2007), now out in French, Korean, and Japanese, with Spanish and Danish translations forthcoming. His latest book, a study of Victorian agnosticism, is called The Age of Doubt: Tracing the Roots of Our Religious Uncertainty (Yale trade, January 2011).

Lane has also edited two books: The Psychoanalysis of Race (Columbia, 1998) and Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis (Chicago, 2001). His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Slate, New York Sun, Herald Tribune, and the New Statesman and Society. He has also published more than fifty peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Raritan, Novel, Victorian Studies, Common Knowledge, Theory and Psychology, the Oxford Literary Review, and the International Literary Quarterly.

His work has been supported by fellowships from the British Academy, the Mellon Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and several others.

He writes a blog for Psychology Today called "Side Effects."