Horace's 'Epistles', Wieland and the Reader: A Three-Way Relationship
Jane V. Curran
Bithell Series of Dissertations 19 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 38•1 January 1995

Benedikte Naubert (1765-1819) and her Relations to English Culture
Hilary Brown
Bithell Series of Dissertations 27 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 63•1 May 2005

  • ‘A detailed bibliography [rounds] out this meticulous, scholarly work. Brown’s thorough and perceptive investigation of Naubert’s fiction and English literature makes previous work on the author obsolete. It takes Naubert’s oeuvre out of the niche of gender studies and places it squarely in the mainstream of German literary history and in the rich tradition of Anglo-German literary and cultural cross-currents.’ — Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Modern Language Review 102, 2007, 565 (full text online)

The Reception of English Puritan Literature in Germany
Peter Damrau
Bithell Series of Dissertations 29 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 66•30 July 2006

  • ‘Damrau’s study is a well researched and exceptionally well documented inquiry into the relationship between Puritanism and Pietism that reaches beyond the theological into the linguistic and literary disciplines. The extensive bibliography offers dictionaries, primary and secondary literature of relevant works in both the English and German literatures and a refreshingly new approach.’ — Helene M. Riley, Germanic Notes and Reviews 30.1, 2007, 56-59
  • ‘This book makes a valuable contribution to current understanding of the presence of British thinking and texts in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Germany and is to be commended for its detailed analysis, its cross-disciplinary approach and its clear argument.’ — Nils Langer, Modern Language Review 103, 2008, 267-68 (full text online)

Hamann's Prophetic Mission: A Genetic Study of Three Late Works against the Enlightenment
Timothy Beech
Bithell Series of Dissertations 34 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 74•23 April 2010

The Wallenstein Figure in German Literature and Historiography 1790-1920
Steffan Davies
Bithell Series of Dissertations 36 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 76•19 February 2010

Nelle Carceri di G. B. Piranesi
Silvia Gavuzzo-Stewart
Italian Perspectives 2•31 October 1999

Playing with Gender: The Comedies of Goldoni
Maggie Günsberg
Italian Perspectives 7•31 January 2002

Ugo Foscolo and English Culture
Sandra Parmegiani
Italian Perspectives 20•12 May 2011

  • ‘Partecipe di un consistente e costruttivo dialogo critico con altri studiosi, Parmegiani non trascura di sondare, nel corso della propria disamina, il circostante terreno di ricerca presentando al lettore un resoconto attento ed attuale. Il libro costituisce in questa prospettiva un compendio indispensabile agli studi, tuttora in fieri, sui variegati rapporti intrattenuti da Foscolo con la cultura inglese. A questo elaborato mosaico Parmegiani ha avuto il merito di aggiungere con la propria indagine un autorevole tassello mancante.’ — Maria Giulia Carone, Annali d'Italianistica 2012
  • ‘A well written and highly informative account of Foscolo's career... Most readers of The Shandean will think of Foscolo predominantly as the translator of Sterne: it is fascinating to read of his attempts to make a literary career in London in the last decade of his life where, encouraged by John Cam Hobhouse, he crosses paths (and often swords) with such luminaries as Wordsworth, Byron, Samuel Rogers, Thomas Moore, John Murray, and Sir Walter Scott.’ — W. G. Day, The Shandean 167-72
  • ‘This book proves itself to be extremely important for a more global and at the same detailed analysis of Italian proto-Romanticism and Romanticism from a comparatively European viewpoint... The result is a convincing portrayal of Foscolo’s relationship with English culture, which will surely be helpful for both the Italian and Anglo-Saxon scholarships in Italian studies, as well as for the broader community of scholars in eighteenth-century and Romantic studies.’ — Fabio Camilletti, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 18.3, 2013, 364-65

Classical Comedy 1508-1786: A Legacy from Italy and France
Richard Andrews
Italian Perspectives 55•20 October 2022

  • ‘An encyclopedic contribution to the history of comedy, with a particular focus on the transformation of comedy in Paris, where the greatest playwrights preserved the genre’s positive vision and harnessed the vitality of the Italian “Arte” to create their more serious comedies of character... The “Analyses” section is particularly valuable. It is divided between technical questions and plot or character issues, and the technical discussions, informed by Andrews extraordinary knowledge and deep understanding of how comedy works, are outstanding.’ — 552-54, Annali d'Italianistica 2023, 41, Laurie Shepard

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: A Life of Culture
Malcolm Cook
Legenda (General Series) •5 September 2006

  • ‘We tend to think of the author of Paul et Virginie as a one-hit wonder. This new biography shows that he was a man of many parts... Malcolm Cook draws on his unrivalled knowledge of Bernardin's manuscripts to give the life and works a personal and "cultural" frame.’ — Robin Howells, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 203-04 (full text online)
  • ‘An intriguing book, full of surprises: a window into the mind of the researcher as well into the life of his subject.’ — Dena Goodman, French Studies 479
  • ‘Maintaining an almost scientific objectivity, the biographer proceeds with caution in his assessments, reevaluating and correcting previous sources without speculating unnecessarily in the absence of evidence. From this process emerges the unembellished and contained sketch of a writer who lived a full and interesting life during challenging times. Specialists and general readers alike will certainly want to know more about Bernardin after reading this biography.’ — Christina Ionescu, French Review 82.1, 2009, 159-60
  • ‘Commentateur des œuvres de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, historien de la littérature de la période révolutionnaire, particulièrement intéressé par les questions de réception (comme en témoignent les colloques qu’il a organisés sur les réécritures et sur la critique), Cook donne une biographie qui est au confluent de ses thèmes d’étude de prédilection, et qui doit être lue parallèlement à ses travaux antérieurs.’ — Youmna Charara, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 22.3, 2010, 735-36
  • ‘This is a wonderfully readable and insightful book, exceptionally richly illustrated with unpublished manuscript documents, and written with a true love for its subject.’ — Mark Darlow, Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies 33.2, June 2010, 284

Classical Rhetoric and the German Poet: 1620 to the Present
Anna Carrdus
Legenda (General Series) •1 January 1997

  • ‘The tone is confident, the style lucid. Within a few pages the reader senses how purposeful the exposition is, and how well thought out. But what makes Anna Carrdus's performance so assured is her obvious commitment to poetry itself... It concludes with a wish that may sound audacious, yet which the undertaking wholly justifies: 'My findings will, I hope, open up an opportunity for scholarship to revise current perceptions of the history of German poetry.' She has already revised them herself, single-handed.’ — Peter Skrine, Modern Language Review 94.1, 1999, 243-5 (full text online)
  • ‘Die Analysen sind treffich, und die Er≥rterungen zum literarhistorischen und poetologischen Kontext zeugen von groôer Kennerschaft.’ — Joachim Knape, Germanistik 41.2, 2000, 419

Condé in Context: Ideological Change in Seventeenth-Century France
Mark Bannister
Legenda (General Series) •1 November 2000

  • ‘Bannister does an excellent job of reminding us that changes in relationships of power are the product of more than political developments or individual actions... Anyone interested in the nature of the seventeenth-century state will appreciate how the approach to the subject has just been widened.’ — Alan James, French History 16.2, 2002, 233-4
  • Gerrit Walther, Historische Zeitschrift 275, 2002, 195-6
  • ‘Compelling... Bannister's account, full of scholarly enthusiasm and fascination with the subject, is exemplary in introducing readers to the crucial relation between political and cultural transformations in a society that both resisted and welcomed them.’ — Henry Phillips, French Studies LVII.1, 2003, 80-1

Diderot and the Body
Angelica Goodden
Legenda (General Series) •1 July 2001

  • ‘Vorremmo sottolineare anche la bellezza del titolo del volume di A. Goodden, titolo elegante nella sua apparente essenzialità ma al tempo stesso anticpatore di uno studio richissimo e interessante.’ — Paola Perazzolo, Studi francesi 139, 2003, 174
  • ‘Welcome, in that it deals comprehensively with a subject which has lurked, half-hidden, in many previous studies of Diderot, often noticed but never fully confronted... Sends one back to grapple yet again with this most protean of philisophes.’ — D. J. Adams, French Studies LVII.2, 2003, 236-7
  • ‘A richly interesting study, written with Angelica Goodden's characteristic vigour, which illuminates both Diderot's works and a wide range of eighteenth-century literature and thought.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies XL.1, 2004, 104
  • ‘An eminently readable, coherent and cogent volume which captures the profundity, wisdom, humanity, excesses, sensuality, and frailty of Diderot, both the man and the writer.’ — Roseann Runte, French Review 77/4, March 2004, 783

Goethe and Patriarchy: Faust and the Fates of Desire
James Simpson
Legenda (General Series) •2 January 1999

  • notice, Germanistik 41.3-4, 2000, 921
  • ‘Simpson argues that Goethe's work, in essence, constitutes an act of self-diagnosis and therapy... his paradigm is not just Freudian, but also implicitly Jungian.’ — Paul Bishop, Modern Language Review 96.2, 2001, 566-7 (full text online)
  • ‘This book is not brilliant: it is too carefully argued and clearly written to deserve that flashy label of the day. A more apt descriptor might be formidable, both for its ambition and for its achievement. Simpson has undertaken nothing less than the elucidation of the paradigm that was central to all of Goethe's intellectual, personal, scientific and poetic concerns, the "ur-fantasy that is a fantasy of origins"... In the best tradition of British literary criticism, Simpson writes in a lively, engaging style that does not need jargon... No one working seriously on Goethe or on Faust can ignore the challenge of this study.’ — Arnd Bohm, Seminar 41.1, 2005, 73-74

Regressive Fictions: Graffigny, Rousseau, Bernardin
Robin Howells
Legenda (General Series) •24 August 2007

  • ‘Robin Howells investigates the connections between three eighteenth-century best-sellers in chronological order... everyone will find fresh insights on the eighteenth-century success stories.’ — Simon Davies, French Studies 63.1, 2009, 88-89

The Poems and Songs of Henry Hall of Hereford: A Jacobite Poet of the 1690s
Oliver Pickering
Legenda (General Series) •13 September 2022

  • ‘Pickering has documented and illuminated with great learning and skill a minor but nevertheless fascinating figure in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English literary culture – for which all serious students of the period will be very grateful.’ — David Hopkins, Seventeenth Century 38.4, 2023, 720-22 (full text online)

The Inn and the Traveller: Digressive Topographies in the Early Modern European Novel
Will McMorran
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2002

  • ‘The book could serve, almost by the way, as a brief introduction to the modes of early narrative fiction in any of the European languages on which it draws.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies XL.1, 2004, 112
  • ‘McMorran's approach offers a number of intriguing comparisons among a set of novels not itherto considered together in a single study. It places Fielding and Sterne within a broader European context, which so many Anglocentric treatments fail to do. Most important, it usefully interrogates the ways that travel within a text reflects, influences, and subverts travel through a text.’ — Joseph F. Bartolomeo, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 17:2, 2005, 288-90
  • ‘A highly accomplished comparatist, McMorran respects the specificities of the national traditions to which the works he discusses belong while teasing out the overarching European narrative on which his interpretation depends.’ — Charles Forsdick, Modern Language Review 102.1, January 2007, 187-88 (full text online)

Sublime Worlds: Early Modern French Literature
Emma Gilby
Legenda (General Series) •7 December 2006

  • ‘In a book which deals with aspects of a certain literary experience, the presence of Pascal alongside Corneille and Boileau here may at first surprise. The overriding concern with cognition and models of communication, however, vindicates his inclusion, and indeed adds a richness to Gilby's already suggestive study... A sensitive, detailed and compelling treatment, challenging several idées reçues along the way.’ — James Ambrose, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 851-52 (full text online)
  • ‘Gilby's theory of the sublime as a movement stressing the horizontality of communication rather than the verticality of loftiness offers new insights and adds to earlier work on sublimity by Jules Brody and Marc Fumaroli.’ — C. J. Gossip, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 30.1, 2009, 49-50
  • ‘Gilby’s conception of the sublime is neatly mirrored in her own work, which offers a series of close, nuanced readings that in turn suggest greater insights into the century more generally.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.1, January 2011
  • ‘A compelling case for seeing the seventeenth-century French reception of the Longinian sublime as a broader, deeper, and more varied development than is commonly assumed.’ — Richard Scholar, French Studies 65.1, January 2011, 92-93

Identity and Transformation in the Plays of Alexis Piron
Derek Connon
Legenda (General Series) •23 February 2007

  • ‘What emerges from Connon’s analyses is the sheer vitality of Piron’s production, its sometimes "anarchic" inventiveness, and its propensity to question hierarchies and cross boundaries of genre... I recommend this book highly.’ — Mark Darlow, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 855-56 (full text online)
  • ‘This is a particularly good-looking book, with attractive hardcover, smart format, quality white paper and lovely typesetting. It boasts the kind of finish that just makes reading particularly pleasant, and all the more so when its content inspires one to return to a relatively forgotten playwright who clearly deserves more attention than his Villon-like epitaph irreverently suggests: ‘Ci-gît Piron, qui ne fut rien,/Pas même académicien’.’ — Síofra Pierse, French Studies 477-78

Sensibility, Reading and Illustration: Spectacles and Signs in Graffigny, Marivaux and Rousseau
Ann Lewis
Legenda (General Series) •17 July 2009

  • ‘A detailed and compelling analysis... Moreover Lewis skilfully combines insights from various fields (literary history, genre studies, theory of representation, reader response) to generate thought-provoking analysis, to provide a nuanced assessment of sensibility, and to suggest additional avenues that warrant investigation.’ — Diane Beelen Woody, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 23.3, Spring 2011, 586-89
  • ‘Thoroughly researched, clearly written, and handsomely produced, this book is a significant contribution to scholarship on French eighteenth-century literature... Readers should be glad that Lewis has so adeptly read the signs and spectacles.’ — Heidi Bostic, French Review 84.5, April 2011, 1029-30
  • ‘Précis, bien informé et solidement documenté, l’ouvrage constitue un apport précieux et stimulant aux recherches sur l’illustration romanesque auquel il articule une réflexion intéressante sur le genre et la réception du roman sensible.’ — Florence Magnot-Ogilvy, French Studies 66.2, April 2012, 245-46
  • ‘[Lewis's] meticulous approach is valuable in providing an at-a-glance overview of the numerous illustrated editions of these well-known novels as well as a point of reference for researchers in the field. The consideration of nineteenth- and twentieth-century illustrations adds depth to Lewis’s study and gives credence to her theory of illustration as a ‘reading’ of a text at various points in history. This is exemplified by the ‘Romantic’ interpretation of the character of Saint-Preux in the nineteenth century, for example, or the eroticised presentation of La Vie de Marianne for a French audience of the 1930s.’ — Una Brogan, Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies 35.3, September 2012, 444-45
  • ‘En somme, Intimicy and distance parvient à ouvrir des horizons insoupçonnés sur un concept indissociable de la modernité et saura profiter à nombre de chercheur.cheuse.s qui s’intéressent aux cultures du XIXe siècle.’ — Daniel Long, Dalhousie French Studies 119, 2021, 184-185

The Near and Distant God: Poetry, Idealism and Religious Thought from Hölderlin to Eliot
Ian Cooper
Legenda (General Series) •3 October 2008

  • ‘This is an intellectually distinguished, engagingly written and outstandingly original book, which succeeds admirably in its aim of tracing the close and continuous connection of lyric poetry, philosophical idealism and religious thought from Hölderlin to Eliot... Its achievement is as relevant to theology as it is to German Studies and deserves the widest possible readership.’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 110
  • ‘A sophisticated example of how literary studies may benefit from approaches that are theologically and spiritually mindful.’ — Helena M. Tomko, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 512-13 (full text online)
  • ‘This study is densely written (something that should be applauded rather than criticized!) and cogently argued... Intellectually highly rewarding.’ — Rüdiger Görner, Comparative Critical Studies 7.2–3, 2010, 405-08
  • ‘He avoids the pitfall of many comparable studies, in which poems are merely mined for their philosophical content--a fate that especially Holderlin, Rilke, and Eliot have frequently suffered in the past. His readings of the poems emphasize the process of writing and reading--in these processes, transcendence can be experienced, and the promise of community be enacted. Cooper's fine analytical skills give us many fresh perspectives on a series of major poems.’ — Johannes Wich-Schwarz, Christianity and Literature Autumn 2010
  • ‘What seems like a huge and bold undertaking is impressively achieved... compelling and, at times, beautiful writing.’ — Carly McLaughlin, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 248, 2011, 166-67
  • ‘Cooper succeeds in establishing the centrality of theology to the work of Hölderlin, and in tracing the afterlife of Hölderlin's poetic religiosity he expands our awareness of the prehistory of the high modernist struggle to come to terms with Spirit.’ — Nathaniel Davis, Journal of Modern Literature 35.1, Fall 2011, 196-99

The Libertine’s Nemesis: The Prude in Clarissa and the roman libertin
James Fowler
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011

  • ‘The beguiling cover of this Legenda volume is well matched by the book’s contents. Fowler’s thesis is an original and well-argued one: the establishment of a symbiotic relationship between the libertine and the prude in a number of key eighteenth-century texts... the argument is persuasive and elegant, and we are swept along by the author’s enthusiasm for his subject.’ — John Phillips, French Studies 66.3, July 2012, 402

Dissonance in the Republic of Letters: The Querelle des Gluckistes et des Piccinnistes
Mark Darlow
Legenda (General Series) •23 February 2013

  • ‘Darlow quotes generously from a wide selection of the many texts that contributed to the quarrel, from the writings of well-known authors to anonymous pamphlets. His profound and thoughtful study should be of interest not only to music specialists, but to anyone with an interest in eighteenth-century aesthetics and ideas.’ — Derek Connon, Modern Language Review 109.2, April 2014, 513-14 (full text online)
  • ‘Mark Darlow’s excellent book is less concerned with questions about the extent to which Piccinni and other Italians imitated Gluck than with the wider context of the Querelle. This includes the politics of the Opéra itself, as well as the literary, social and political dimensions of the affair. He has gone beyond the published collections of polemic to sources hitherto ignored.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.4, October 2014, 504
  • ‘This is a timely and important book... Darlow has digested an impressive range of source material: archival records, periodicals, pamphlets, letters, memoires, livrets, scores - and those are merely the eighteenth-century sources. His discussions are also constantly in- formed by copious reference to, and generous discussion of, the work of his scholarly peers.’ — Nathan John Martin, Music & Letters 282-85

Richardson and the Philosophes
James Fowler
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2014

  • ‘James Fowler aims to restore Richardson to his proper place in an Enlightenment that resisted stratification along na- tional lines, and one in which Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment ideals inter- sected productively to engender the ideological dynamism we associate with the second half of the eighteenth century... Fowler initiates an important conversation about Richardson’s influence on the Continent.’ — Hans Nazar, French Studies 69.2, April 2015, 245
  • ‘The strength of Fowler’s study is found in his examination of a debate that perplexed Christians and deists alike (and with which atheists, too, had to engage): the role of Providence in conducting human affairs (or not) and the subsequent question of whether justice is to be achieved in this world or the next.’ — Karen Lacey-Holder, Modern Language Review 110.3, July 2015, 785-86 (full text online)
  • ‘The book is the most sustained examination to date of why Richardson, ‘a ‘‘counter-Enlightenment’’ writer’ who ‘claimed to write religious novels in order to counter anti-Christian tendencies in Britain’, should find such a sincere, serious, and even emulative audience in a generation of French intellectuals who ‘almost by definition, saw revealed religion as a source of prejudice and superstition’.’ — James Smith, The Year's Work in English Studies 95.1, 2016, 655-56

Privileged Anonymity: The Writings of Madame de Lafayette
Anne Green
Research Monographs in French Studies 1•1 June 1996

  • ‘Produces many fresh insights, and demonstrates admirably that La Fayette's writing repays detailed scrutiny... Readable, instructive and accessible: valuable for specialists and illuminating for the general reader.’ — Maya Slater, Times Literary Supplement 1996
  • ‘This thought-provoking study inaugurates a major new series of critical monographs... Offers many fresh insights into these important texts, and it is to be warmly welcomed.’ — Jonathan Mallinson, French Studies LIV.2, 2000, 215-6
  • Luisa Benatti, Studi francesi 124, 1998, 135

Towards a Cultural Philology: Phèdre and the Construction of 'Racine'
Amy Wygant
Research Monographs in French Studies 4•1 July 1999

  • ‘This book approaches Racine not primarily as a classicist, but as a playwright rooted in his own time... Through references to philosophy, art and music, Wygant interrogates the meaning of frequently used phrases such as 'the music of Racine'. This study draws together many strands of research through the juxtaposition of a multiplicity of areas and details.’ — Rosemary Arnoux, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 22.2, 2001, 43-4
  • ‘A fresh, clever, often entertaining book, about lots of things as well as Phèdre, and the brief volume is lavishly and revealing illustrated.’ — Richard Parish, Modern Language Review 96.1, 2001, 187-8 (full text online)

Silent Witness: Racine's Non-Verbal Annotations of Euripides
Susanna Phillippo
Research Monographs in French Studies 14•1 June 2003

  • ‘Phillippo ... is to be congratulated on finding interest in such apparently unpromising markings and on giving them voice. Indeed, her book is a triumph of sober scholarship and critical imagination.’ — Michael Hawcroft, French Studies LVIII.3, 2004, 408-9
  • ‘Source criticism seems to have caught a second wind lately ... Silent Witness represents an enlightened form of this methodological approach, giving an inside view of Racine's creative process that allows us to look over his shoulder in the atelier d'artiste.’ — Ronald W. Tobin, L'Esprit Créateur Vol. XLIV, n. 2, Summer 2004, 97-8
  • ‘This book has been painstakingly researched and set out in a manner to facilitate the reader's understanding of the detailed argument based on close reading of the French and Greek texts.’ — Rosemary Arnoux, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 25/1, 2004, 61-2
  • ‘It is true that we will never know why Racine marked certain passages, and that we can also argue for the influence of text that is unmarked. The study of sources will necessarily often belong to the domain of informed speculation. But if we accept that literary criticism deals more in persuasion than in certainties, we will be more sympathetic to this well-judged attempt to look at an old question in what is an original, clear-headed, and stimulating way.’ — John Campbell, Modern Language Review 100.2, April 2005, 500-01 (full text online)
  • ‘For anyone interested in Euripides and his influence, the research and the argument here presented offer much to tantalize.’ — Clara Shaw Hardy, The Classical Bulletin 81.1, 2005, 98-100
  • ‘Phillippo's conclusions remain firmly within the limits of what can reasonably be deduced from the evidence and the complete listing in an appendix of Racine's non-verbal annotations allow the sceptic to check against the original Euripidean text. This book has added an important element to the study of Racine's work.’ — Mark Bannister, International Journal of the Classical Tradition Fall 2004, 312-13

Poisoned Words: Slander and Satire in Early Modern France
Emily Butterworth
Research Monographs in French Studies 21•24 May 2006

  • ‘Emily Butterworth’s thoughtful and elegantly argued study... makes an important contribution to that burgeoning area of critical study where literature can never be conceived outside the notion of law, and in this case, the law itself.’ — Henry Phillips, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 852-53 (full text online)
  • ‘Her excellent book will be of interest to anybody concerned with rhetoric, polemic and the fashioning (and unfashioning) of early modern reputations.’ — Timothy Chesters, French Studies 469-70
  • ‘Butterworth’s valuable work clearly shows that slander and satire are linked to other important preoccupations of the time (such as the use of rhetoric and the formation of identity) and brings a welcome focus on three writers, each of whom addresses one of Lucian’s positions: slanderer, audience and victim.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 45.3 (2009), 351-54

Furetière's Roman bourgeois and the Problem of Exchange: Titular Economies
Craig Moyes
Research Monographs in French Studies 34•21 December 2012

  • ‘Although this highlighting of the connection between Le Roman bourgeois and the Dictionnaire universel is not new, it provides a stream of stimulating insights, taking the argument far beyond the intertextuality that is usually the limit of critical concern in this area. A chapter on ‘Numismatics’, for instance, moves easily from Furetière’s satire of bourgeois marriage as a model of social and financial exchange, encapsulated in the ‘Tariffe des partis sortables’, by way of the décri of monetary (but also literary) value, to the linguistic ‘gold standard’ that the Académie intended to establish with its dictionary, so alien to Furetière’s own aims.’ — Mark Bannister, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 394-96
  • ‘L’intérêt de cet essai de critique littéraire ne se situe, en effet, non seulement dans sa lecture minutieuse, singulière, souvent ingénieuse du Roman bourgeois dont il souligne bien les pièges et les passionnants replis, mais aussi dans les multiples approches critiques employées tout au long de l’ouvrage.’ — Jean-Alexandre Perras, H-France 14, December 2014, 199

Form and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Spain: Utopian Narratives and Socio-Political Debate
Carla Almanza-Gálvez
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 33•25 February 2019

Metaphor and Materiality: German Literature and the World-View of Science 1780-1955
Peter D. Smith
Studies In Comparative Literature 4•1 June 2000

  • ‘Smith is able to show convincingly how ambivalence about the role of science or scientific tendencies permeates these literary works, and he offers interesting insights into the sometimes subtle thematization of scientific ideas in literature.’ — Elizabeth Neswald, British Journal for the History of Science 35, 2002, 363-4
  • ‘Smith's mastery of both primary and secondary sources is remarkable, and his bibliographies provide a useful guide to the (often vast) secondary literature... Demonstrates the extraordinary richness and importance of the vein of research into which Smith has tapped, and puts much other work in so-called Cultural Studies to shame.’ — Paul Bishop, Modern Language Review 97.2, 2002, 505-7 (full text online)
  • ‘In this thorough study of the exchange between science and literature, Peter D. Smith skillfully argues that the idea of these Two Cultures existing in isolation from one another is overly simplistic... An excellent contribution to the vital research currently examining the interdisciplinary nature of scientific and literary works.’ — Heather I. Sullivan, Monatshefte 94.4, 2002, 541-2

Moving Scenes: The Aesthetics of German Travel Writing on England 1783-1830
Alison E. Martin
Studies In Comparative Literature 13•3 October 2008

  • ‘A valuable and thoughtful study of aesthetic strategies in a genre in which their role is all too frequently overlooked... Martin is to be praised for the clarity of her exposition. She displays a thorough grasp of the key points at issue in the aesthetic debate of the period both in Germany and England (with occasional glances across to France), and gives due emphasis to the process of cross-fertilisation between the two countries through translation and travel.’ — Susan Pickford, German Quarterly 2009
  • ‘This study is richly researched and engagingly written, with frequent references to contemporary developments in society, politics, science and technology, the visual and theater arts, historiography, and other literary genres. It has separate bibliographies of primary and secondary sources and an excellent index of names and terms. Martin is also a sensitive, resourceful translator and has provided the English for all German quotations, titles, and terms... Points the way for other scholars of the subject.’ — Michael Ritterson, Eighteenth-Century Studies 43.2, Winter 2010, 278-80
  • ‘Textnah und detailreich untersucht A. E. Martin Strategien wirkungsästhetischer und rhetorischer Modellierungen in Englandreisen aus fünf Jahrzehnten.’ — Alexander Košenina, Germanistik 50, 2009, 278-79
  • ‘In this fascinating new book, Alison Martin picks out six travelogues on England and makes the case that they deserve to be treated as ‘serious’ literature... The case studies are meticulously researched, and she places each text in context with reference to an impressive array of sources, from contemporary letters and reviews (English as well as German) to modern scholarly studies on art, political history, and even geology. Her close analyses of the texts themselves are lively and sophisticated... In the end, the book puts forward convincing arguments for the complexity and seriousness of this writing, and serves to remind us that the boundaries between genres are much more fluid than often supposed. As such, it should be of interest not only to scholars of travel writing but of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and culture more generally.’ — Hilary Brown, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 586-87 (full text online)
  • ‘The six case studies presented in this volume have been meticulously researched and contextualised, and some of the research - especially that concerning Esther Gad and Carl Gottlieb Horstig - is highly original.’ — Angus Nicholls, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 247.162, 2010, 389-90
  • ‘Martin is able to cover an impressive amount of ground, encompassing visual, oral and literary elements, as well as addressing key gender and socio-critical questions... The volume also constitutes a plea for the literary value of such travel narratives... It is this aspect in particular which makes this excellent volume stand out as an important and innovative contribution to European travel writing scholarship.’ — Carol Tully, Angermion 3, 2010, 207-10

Alienation and Theatricality: Diderot after Brecht
Phoebe von Held
Studies In Comparative Literature 17•25 March 2011

  • ‘This is a rich and rewarding study that opens up important new perspectives not only on its two chosen thinkers, but also on the questions of acting both onstage and in society more generally.’ — Joseph Harris, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 557
  • ‘[Held's] general principle is surprisingly simple and compelling: While the 'self-alienating artifice' of Diderot's calculating actor succeeds for the most part at immedsing the audience to identification and illusion, there are moments at which it suddenly comes to the fore... Jolted by this 'sudden emergence of alienation', the spectator is now 'faced with her own involvement in the operation of delusion'.’ — Florian Nikolas Becker, Brecht Yearbook 37 (2012), 253-58

Blake, Lavater and Physiognomy
Sibylle Erle
Studies In Comparative Literature 21•6 September 2010

  • ‘Erle’s conclusion is that Lavater could be seen by Blake to be superficial, and that Blake was more interested in showing how identity was constructed through the body, rather than through a given soul: bringing back the body means showing how that is connected to historical and material circumstances and culture operating, for instance, in the 1790s, the decade of Blake’s creation myths.’ — Jeremy Tambling, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1132-33 (full text online)
  • ‘By developing this art-historical context [i.e., of Henry Fuseli], Erle produces many informative analyses of the ways in which both Blake's poetry and his prints reveal an abiding interest 'in how the human form acquires its embodied identity and the pitfalls inherent in likeness-making'.’ — Joseph Bristow, Studies in English Literature 51.4, Autumn 2011, 927
  • ‘Erle deserves great credit for returning the role of Lavater to Blake studies - especially as Blake’s interests in physiognomy remained with him all through his life, surfacing again in his late Visionary Heads—and her chapter on the editing that took place in transforming the Physiognomische Fragmente into the Essays on Physiognomy is a superb piece of scholarship on this often neglected text.’ — unsigned review, The Year's Work in English Studies 91.1, 2012, 673
  • ‘Erle’s thorough knowledge of the German and British settings puts her in an exceptionally good position to elucidate a Blake connected to international literary, philosophical, and artistic circles, participating in collective publication projects that circulate knowledge between Britain and the Continent. Indeed, one of the most attractive features of the book is its attention to the intellectual exchanges and emotional bonds between men. In Erle’s view of the annotations to Lavater, we see a Blake who is, perhaps surprisingly, as eager to please, heartily agree, and find affinities as he is to denounce Error.’ — Tristanne Connolly, Blake, An Illustrated Quarterly 47.4, Spring 2014

Comparative Literature in Britain: National Identities, Transnational Dynamics 1800-2000
Joep Leerssen
Studies In Comparative Literature 27•23 September 2019

  • ‘This is a study of the rare kind of which it can truthfully be said that it is definitive: the description fits Leerssen’s book perfectly. To those still living who launched comparative literature in the new universities some 50 years ago it will come as a happy reminder of an exciting time of innovation and change which they were fortunate to have been part of. To those of a later generation it will reveal that what happened in the 1960s did not emerge from nowhere: a long and honourable history, ably explored by Professor Leerssen, led up to it.’ — John Fletcher, Journal of European Studies 50.3, 2020, 302-321 (full text online)
  • ‘The publication of [this book] is welcome news... The entire section on the nineteenth century is a treasure house of insights into cross-national and comparative ways of approaching knowledge... This is, all in all, a book to be heartily recommended for a wide variety of readers interested in comparative studies in the humanities and social sciences, while being of particular interest to those wishing to understand the evolution of literary and cultural studies.’ — Barnita Bagchi, History of Humanities Fall 2020, 554-56

Sublime Conclusions: Last Man Narratives from Apocalypse to Death of God
Robert K. Weninger
Studies In Comparative Literature 43•29 September 2017

  • unsigned notice, The Year's Work in English Studies 98.1, 2019, 657-58

The First English Translations of Molière: Drama in Flux 1663-1732
Suzanne Jones
Transcript 13•28 September 2020

Herder and the Philosophy and History of Science
H. B. Nisbet
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 3•1 January 1970

Voltaire's Disciple: Jean François de La Harpe
Christopher Todd
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 7•1 January 1972

The Appearance of Character: Physiognomy and Facial Expression in Eighteenth-Century France
Melissa Percival
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 47•2 January 1999

A Culture of Mimicry: Laurence Sterne, His Readers and the Art of Bodysnatching
Warren L. Oakley
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 73•6 September 2010

  • ‘A brief but fascinating study of the appropriations of Sterne's fiction.’ — Devoney Looser, Studies in English Literature 51.3, 2011, 713-14
  • ‘Sterne's body was snatched after his death, turned up in an operating theatre, was recognized, and reburied. As Warren Oakley makes very clear in this brilliant dissertation, it was not only his corpse but also his corpus (in the sense of literary output) which underwent remarkable transformations.’ — Peter de Voogd, The Shandean 22, 2011, 168-70

Diderot and Lessing as Exemplars of a Post-Spinozist Mentality
Louise Crowther
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 78•6 September 2010

Narrative Structure and Philosophical Debates in Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste
Margaux Whiskin
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 95•1 January 2014

  • ‘Whiskin proves a perceptive and engaging commentator who will aid readers in their journeys through a literary world of orderly disorder.’ — Simon Davies, French Studies 68, 2014, 546-47