 | 👤 Narcisse Berchère (1819-91), French painter |
Published October 2010
Narcisse Berchère, Le Désert de Suez: cinq mois dans l'Isthme
Edited by Barbara Wright
Critical Texts 24
- ‘Scholars in a variety of fields might profitably engage with Narcisse Berchère’s rich discursive and pictorial account of the Suez Canal’s construction, one which Wright’s impeccable scholarship has now made available to us.’ — Wendelin Guentner, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 41, 2013, 152-55
- ‘This re-edition and informative introduction by Barbara Wright thus puts back into circulation a text that self-consciously promotes the notion that ‘canaliser’ is a synonym of ‘coloniser’. ... This re-edition is invaluable, since the twenty illustrations from Le Tour du monde of 1863, presented in the appendix, are the sole survivors of the commission, a welcome glimpse of Berchère’s oeuvre, lost in Versailles during the Commune."’ — Peter Dunwoodie, Modern Language Review 107, 2012, 625-26 (full text online)