⌂ See also the home page of the Legenda book series Legenda (General Series)

Edmond Jabès: The Hazard of Exile
Steven Jaron
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2003

  • ‘A meticulously researched account of backgrounds to Edmond Jabès's poetry... Its focus on the early period in Egypt brings to view an aspect of Jabès's life not much otherwise looked at. And it raises many questions vital to understanding Jabès.’ — Shira Wolosky, Partial Answers 4.1, 2006, 201-04

Emile Zola and the Artistry of Adaptation
Kate Griffiths
Legenda (General Series) •17 July 2009

  • ‘This book could be grandly defined as an essay in intertextuality, intergenericity and transmodality... Such forbidding terminology should not by any means discourage the more general reader familiar with Zola’s works from engaging with, and almost certainly from enjoying, Kate Griffiths’s splendid study.’ — David Baguley, Bulletin of the Emile Zola Society 2010
  • ‘This is a book that refreshingly refuses to subscribe to clichés about Zola’s ‘pre-cinematic technique’. And in reading adaptations (both forward and back) against her selected texts, Griffiths provides for each of them an intelligent contribution to the thinking of students and specialists alike.’ — Robert Lethbridge, French Studies 65.3, July 2011, 398-99
  • ‘One of the most significant new books to be published concerning a major literary ‘canonical’ figure—Émile Zola—and the adaptations his prose generated... In particular, Griffiths’s work on La Terre is one of the best discussions of Antoine’s silent masterpiece I have read in years. Her scholarly text is readable, intellectually cogent, and illuminating for the student of Zola’s naturalist, experimental methodology, as formulated in his ‘scientific’ prose, and the ensuing, often multiple, film interpretations it generated. This is a superior study of literary–film interrelations, excellent and timely scholarship.’ — Robert Singer, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1160-61 (full text online)

England and the Avignon Popes: The Practice of Diplomacy in Late Medieval Europe
Karsten Plöger
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2005

  • Ralf Lützelschwab, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 86, 2006, 814-16
  • Medioevo Latino XXVIII, July 2007, 1153)
  • ‘From the perspective of communication developments, the present book produces important insights into the many challenges with which medieval diplomacy had to cope.’ — Sophia Menache, The Medieval Review February 2007
  • ‘A thorough and enlightening study of how diplomacy was conducted between the two courts at a time when war, plague, and the activities of unemployed mercenaries made travel between Westminster and Avignon dangerous and exacting, while the reception enjoyed by envoys was likely to be frosty at best.’ — Norman Housley, Speculum April 2006
  • Stefan White, Francia-Recensio 2008.3

English Responses to French Poetry 1880-1940: Translation and Mediation
Jennifer Higgins
Legenda (General Series) •12 May 2011

  • ‘The account of Huxley’s version of Rimbaud’s ‘Les Chercheuses de poux’ is particularly fine, and laurels awarded to Beckett’s ‘Drunken Boat’ are shown to be well deserved. In this respect, Higgins’s readings are consonant with some of her own general arguments, for she frequently conveys the sense of a critical mind finding out more about the original text, as well as testing the qualities of the translation. In her hands, both French and English texts are made to speak to and of each other.’ — Matthew Creasy, Translation and Literature 21, 2012, 255-61
  • ‘This rewarding book deftly handles — and illuminates — a wide range of sources... a tantalizing taste of a fascinating area for further research.’ — Adam Watt, Modern Language Review 107.3, July 2012, 897-98 (full text online)
  • ‘In the years preceding the Second World War [...] a diminution in the quantity of translated material is compensated for by a greater acknowledgement of the centrality of translation to the development of national — and transnational — literary cultures. This study is to be commended for its consistent advocacy and demonstration of that centrality.’ — Michael G. Kelly, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 572

Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism
Edited by David Adams and Galin Tihanov
Legenda (General Series) •26 August 2011

The Epic Rhetoric of Tasso: Theory and Practice
Maggie Günsberg
Legenda (General Series) •1 May 1998

  • ‘Günsberg examines her material with great accuracy... deals with important aspects of Tasso's thought and poetical practice in a meticulous way, and can be useful both for readers attached to traditional rhetorical categories and for those with an interest in more recent critical developments.’ — Laura Benedetti, Italian Studies LIV, 1999, 177-8
  • ‘An attractive and interesting volume that provides a useful addition to the comparatively thin recent output of Tasso scholarship in this country.’ — Peter Brand, Modern Language Review 95.3, 2000, 857-8 (full text online)

Eugenio Montale: The Poetry of the Later Years
Éanna Ó Ceallacháin
Legenda (General Series) •1 July 2001

  • ‘Explores the ways in which Montale demystifies his own status as a great modernist, satirizes historical progress and current social life, places himself as a 'ghost' among other ghosts, awaiting his dissolution into non-being which may or may not imply some hidden divine presence, and enters into the 'trivial' contingencies of everyday life... From what may have been the old poet's isolated and disillusioned position, he hits the mark time and again, as this well-crafted study shows.’ — Rebecca West, Modern Language Review 98.2, 2003, 479-80 (full text online)
  • ‘Let me declare myself at the outset: this is an excellent piece of work. It is the quintessence of scholarship: meticulously researched, methodologically sound and lucidly written... I cannot emphasise strongly enough the importance of this volume: every student of Montale should be encouraged to read Ó Ceallacháin's perceptive, and above all, comprehensible interpretations of Montale's later poetry. It goes without saying that the notes, bibliography and indices are impeccably produced.’ — Elizabeth Schächter, Italian Studies LVIII, 2003
  • ‘Effectively charts the continuities and changes in the the relationship between the poet and his history.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies XL.2, April 2004, 237

Examining Whiteness: Reading Clarice Lispector through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison
Lucia Villares
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011

  • ‘By enhancing our understanding of Clarice Lispector’s novels with such an original and indispensable study, Villares demonstrates other unexplored ways through which Lispector broke away from the Primitivist vogue and mulattophilia of her generation of modernistas... During those years of intensively nationalist modernizing projects, performing whiteness included the assimilation of an urban ethos, among other bourgeois life standards. Villares’ study highlights the relevance of Lispector’s work for our comprehension of such deep cultural transformations.’ — Sonia Roncador, Ellipsis 12, 2014, 311-13

Experiment and Metaphysics: Towards a Resolution of the Cosmological Antinomies
Edgar Wind
Legenda (General Series) •1 May 2001

The Extreme In-Between: Jean Paulhan's Place in the Twentieth Century
Anna-Louise Milne
Legenda (General Series) •24 May 2006

  • ‘Lights up the firmament of scholarship on Paulhan with brilliance... With wit, exuberance and theoretical sure-footedness, Milne takes us through a series of close readings. Not only does The Extreme In-Between reveal the astonishing reach and depth of Paulhan’s thinking, but it paves the way for a new conception of the relationship of language to political action and historical event, one that has a remarkably contemporary (twenty-first century?) resonance to it.’ — Michael Syrotinski, French Studies 491-92
  • ‘Tout bien considéré, l'ouvrage dense et méticuleusement relu de Milne vient ajouter de nouvelles perspectives aux réévaluations actuelles de Paulhan.’ — Stephen Steele, French Review 81.5, 2008, 1007-08

The Feminine in the Prose of Andrey Platonov
Philip Bullock
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2005

  • ‘The author traces with great clarity the development of Platonov's thinking... This appears to be Legenda's first excursion into the Russian field, and the results are impressive. There are long, carefully analysed quotations in Cyrillic, all fully translated in a way which does justice to Platonov's highly idiosyncratic style.’ — Michael Pursglove, Slavonic and East European Review 84.2, 2006, 314-15 (full text online)
  • ‘Interesting... Although Bullock sets out to concentrate on a single topic (gender) from specific points of view (feminism and psychoanalysis), he admits to his "admiration of the paradoxical nature of [Platonov's] prose", and it is exactly this admiration that prevents the monograph from becoming a single-minded study of just one theme in the prose in question.’ — Anat Vernitski, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 921-23 (full text online)
  • ‘The book is founded on close readings that every scholar of Platonov will want to consult. The formulations are elegant and are likely to be quoted frequently in the scholarly literature... This indispensable book on Platonov is also a compelling study in the value and limits of methodology.’ — Eric Naiman, Russian Review 68.4, 2009, 693-94
  • ‘Philip Bullock’s important new book on Andrei Platonov energetically elaborates what it promises at its outset: a feminist reading of Platonov’s most significant prose works... an eloquent and insightful investigation into a distinctly unsettled element in Platonov’s worldview. Bullock follows earlier studies of gender relations and sexuality in Platonov by Eric Naiman, Eliot Borenstein, and Valerii Podoroga but offers a far more extensive and synthetic account of the oeuvre.’ — Thomas Seifrid, Slavic Review 69.1, Spring 2010, 236-37
  • ‘(notice in Japanese)’ — Susumu Nonaka, Bulletin of the Japanese Association of Russian Scholars 38, 2006, 143-46
  • ‘(notice in Russian)’ — Tat’iana Krasavchenko, Literaturnovedenie 1 (2007), 124-32

Force from Nietzsche to Derrida
Clare Connors
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2010

Form and Feeling in Modern Literature: Essays in Honour of Barbara Hardy
Edited by William Baker with Isobel Armstrong
Legenda (General Series) •4 March 2013

  • ‘The editors are to be congratulated on putting together a volume which maintains a consistently high quality, while ranging widely over a multitude of topics.’ — Leonee Ormond, George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies 64-65, October 2013, 99-100
  • ‘An excellent tribute to the work of Professor Hardy; however, the critical essays and their approach to fiction in the nineteenth century also make this collection of interest to scholars in the field who may not be as familiar with the work of Hardy.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.4, October 2014, 506

Freedom and the Subject of Theory: Essays in Honour of Christina Howells
Edited by Oliver Davis and Colin Davis
Legenda (General Series) •14 May 2019

French Divorce Fiction from the Revolution to the First World War
Nicholas White
Legenda (General Series) •23 February 2013

  • ‘Impeccably researched and well-written... Developing White's earlier survey of the family novel (1999), grounded in historical knowledge, guided by sociological readings, and underpinned by a massive amount of reading from the past two centuries, this ambitious study concludes with a meditation on contemporary images of relationships, in ways that hint at a welcome third volume of the triptych.’ — Rosemary Lloyd, Times Literary Supplement 27 September 2013
  • ‘Fortunately for nineteenth-century French readers, the advent of divorce did not signal an untimely end to the marriage of familial and plot structures... And just as fortunately for contemporary readers, Nicholas White has provided the first study of these distinctively modern tales, deftly weaving long-forgotten divorce novels, many of them quite popular in their time, into a complex and insightful broader sociocultural but also deeply literary and historical narrative.’ — Rachel Mesch, Romanic Review 2014, 104.1-2, 172-74
  • ‘A persuasive study of a society, and its literature, exploring the implications of new ideas of personal freedom.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.2, April 2014, 232
  • ‘The originality of this important study is clear: it is the first book in English or French to focus on the divorce fiction that surrounds the Loi Naquet. The monograph’s ambitious breadth is reflected in the range of authors discussed: in addition to references to canonical figures such as Maupassant and Bourget, renewed consideration is afforded to the ‘Great Unread’, or what is termed ‘“minor” women writers and unfashionable patriarchs’ (p. 145), including André Léo, Claire Vautier, Marie-Anne de Bovet, and Camille Pert, and Anatole France, Alphonse Daudet, and Edouard Rod.’ — Steven Wilson, French Studies 68.2, April 2014, 257
  • ‘Nicholas White has considered a series of important questions about nineteenth- and twentieth-century French novels... His work opens the way for interested readers in fields as various as history, literature, sociology and gender studies to ask and answer new questions of their own about these novels now.’ — Jean Elisabeth Pedersen, French History 28.2, June 2014, 277-78
  • ‘An important contribution to the study of nineteenth-century French literature and the family. The authors covered are an exciting selection of, as White puts it, ‘unknown women and forgotten men’. He displays tremendous knowledge of the corpus and authors, but also of the eras and literary movements discussed. His inspired choice to conclude with American novelist Diane Johnson’s 1997 Le Divorce brings his story to the present, but also contributes to his broader argument about the literary value of texts beyond the canon.’ — Phoebe Maltz Bovy, Modern Language Review 109.4, October 2014, 1086-87 (full text online)
  • ‘Témoignant d’une profonde érudition, apportant une grande attention aux contextes idéologiques et biographiques, cet essai sans équivalent, aux analyses perspicaces, aux enjeux précis, à l’écriture claire et non départie d’humour, offre une lecture aussi enrichissante qu’agréable.’ — Claudie Bernard, French Review 89.1, 2015, 288

From Art Nouveau to Surrealism: Belgian Modernity in the Making
Edited by Nathalie Aubert, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture and Patrick McGuinness
Legenda (General Series) •5 July 2007

  • ‘Discerning insights typify this volume, that sensitively examines sixty years of visual, literary, musical, and political avant-garde expression.’ — Silvano Levy, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1130-31 (full text online)
  • ‘A welcome and wide-ranging picture of Belgian Modernity up to the Second World War.’ — Lénia Marques, Journal of Romance Studies 8.3, Winter 2008, 77-87
  • ‘This collection of fifteen essays is the first in English to present a wide-ranging overview of Belgian modernity between 1880 and 1950. The result is a richly detailed assessment of specifically Belgian cultural production and of its European context, divided into two sections, the first spanning 1880-1918, and the second the inter-war years... an invaluable study of a period whose cultural production the editors describe as "awkward and intractable, but also enriching and full of unexpected possibilities".’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 113

From the Enlightenment to Modernism: Three Centuries of German Literature
Edited by Carolin Duttlinger, Kevin Hilliard, and Charlie Louth
Legenda (General Series) •20 December 2021

Gender, Nation and the Formation of the Twentieth-Century Mexican Literary Canon
Sarah E. L. Bowskill
Legenda (General Series) •6 July 2011

  • ‘Its coherent, well-sustained, and highly persuasive argument is likely to inspire others to take on this and the other challenges outlined in the conclusion. Indeed, as much as Bowskill’s book delves into the archives of reviews of the past, this is also a forward-looking study.’ — Amit Thakkar, Modern Language Review 110.1, January 2015, 273-74 (full text online)
  • ‘Sarah E. L. Bowskill’s study on gender, nation and canon-formation is a groundbreaking treatment of Mexican literature. She dissects a series of canonised and uncanonised novels to prove how the former were privileged by the state and how critics (un)consciously rewarded certain works while ignoring others... Bowskill makes us wonder why no one had deconstructed such critical happenings before, given that nation-building was the overpowering impulse to put Mexico in the literary map of modernity.’ — Francisco A. Lomelí, Bulletin of Latin American Research 34.1, 2014, 106-07

Gentry Life in Georgian Ireland: The Letters of Edmund Spencer (1711-1790)
Edited by Duncan Fraser and Andrew Hadfield
Legenda (General Series) •3 April 2017

  • ‘An extraordinary cache of letters... in this meticulously produced edition, which is an epistolary treat throughout.’ — Hazel Wilkinson, Times Literary Supplement 3 August 2018
  • ‘As an edition of correspondence, this work by Duncan Fraser and Andrew Hadfield is a model of how an edition should be put together. In addition to discussing the use of Old and New Style calendars and describing the archive, they supply a chronological chart of the archive listing dates, folio numbers, addressees, and places of origin. The commentary on transcription skilfully analyses the trade-off between reading the original manuscript and a transcription which ‘pares away the obfuscating aspects of unfamiliar handwriting, outdated orthographical conventions, and the deleterious effects of time on paper’. The discussion of the idiosyncrasies of Spencer’s punctuation is instructive about eighteenth-century attitudes generally and especially noteworthy in its suggestion that dashes may be used as paragraph markers to save the cost of paper. Meanwhile, in their new printed form the letters are presented in a handsomely produced volume by Legenda, an imprint of the Modern Humanities Research Association. In t’ — Jean R. Brink, Modern Language Review 114.4, October 2019, 854-55 (full text online)
  • ‘Spencer should have inherited family estates in Ireland that would make him comfortable for life. In fact, as a result of incompetence and skullduggery, he came into an inheritance that was so embarrassed, that for the rest of his life he had to struggle hard to hold onto social credibility. These letters, meticulously and brilliantly edited, tell part of the story of how Spencer tried to cope.’ — L G Mitchell, Notes & Queries 66.4, December 2019, 602-03 (full text online)

German Women's Writing of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Future Directions in Feminist Criticism
Edited by Helen Fronius and Anna Richards
Legenda (General Series) •26 August 2011

  • ‘The volume will be of great use to students and researchers alike, as a source of well-written critical scholarship and of pointers to severe deficits in current research. It offers productive methodologies for taking the enquiry forward in areas vital to a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the place of women writers as part of the whole picture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cultural history in the German-speaking lands.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.4 (October 2012), 489
  • ‘Thus the book’s structure, like its title, ultimately collapses: the future has not yet happened. Yet it is glimpsed here—and it will indeed necessarily entail killing off and reviving the female author and the female reader, undoing and redoing gender, sexuality, and herstory, embracing pluralism and firing the canon. And it will only have been achieved once the gatekeepers become contributors and all critics—including men—are doing feminist criticism.’ — Robert Gillett, Modern Language Review 109.2, April 2014, 547-48 (full text online)

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

Gravity and Grace: Essays for Roger Pearson
Edited by Charlie Louth and Patrick McGuinness
Legenda (General Series) •25 February 2019

  • ‘A core series of contributions offers a remarkably sustained and rich reflection on the interplay between the aesthetic and ethical notions of gravity and grace.’ — Scott M. Powers, H-France 20, June 2020, no. 92
  • ‘Works of art function by allowing something to happen, rather than by making something happen, and are nothing without our active participation. The prescriptive weightiness of words in practical discourse is not what poetry, especially, puts in play. That certainly makes this book a fitting tribute to the wonderful work of Roger Pearson, whose own writing is never heavy, never pedantic, but always invites and inspires the reader to continue thinking beyond the page.’ — Peter Dayan, Modern Language Review 116.1, 2020, 188-89 (full text online)

Gypsies and Orientalism in German Literature and Anthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century
Nicholas Saul
Legenda (General Series) •5 July 2007

  • ‘Nicholas Saul’s excellent monograph traces what might be termed the prehistory of genocide... Saul discusses many of the major writers and best-known works of nineteenth-century German literature, but also unearths long-forgotten authors and texts. Most welcome is his carefully differentiated understanding of the Gypsy in German literature: most of the writers perpetuate popular myths, but not all are negative in the same way, and some actually introduce more positive images of the Gypsy or portray them as persecuted victims. Taken together, Saul's subtle analyses of individual authors and texts build to an encyclopaedic, if largely depressing, history.’ — Todd Kontje, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1154-55 (full text online)
  • ‘In addition to providing a valuable contribution to understanding the cultural history leading up to the Romany Holocaust, the book offers a foundation for comparing representations of Gypsies and Jews in German culture, which Saul begins to consider in the context of his study.’ — Laurel Plapp, German Quarterly Fall 2008, 502-04
  • ‘In this book Nicholas Saul endeavours to "reconstruct the shifts in the representation of the Gypsy in German culture through the medium of literature and anthropology from around 1850 to the First World War"... well-written and thought-provoking.’ — Gertrud Reershemius, Romani Studies 19.2, 2009, 183-85
  • ‘Nicholas Saul widmet sich in seiner Studie einem von der literaturwissenschaftlichen Forschung lange Zeit vernachtlässigten, in den letzten zehn Jahren jedoch deutlich ins Zentrum des Interesses gerückten Thema: der Repräsentation der sogenannten 'Zigeuner' in der deutschen Literatur vor dem Hintergrund ethnographisch-anthropologischer Diskurse.’ — Stefani Kugler, Jahrbuch der Raabe-Gesellschaft 2009, 194-200
  • ‘Adds an intelligent and long overdue analysis of Romany imagery, helpful for anyone preparing a seminar on Romanticism or Realism and all the way up to Holocaust studies.’ — Roger Russi, Monatshefte 101.3, 2009, 434-36

Haunted Serbia: Representations of History and War in the Literary Imagination
David A. Norris
Legenda (General Series) •1 September 2016

  • ‘This is a remarkable study, which accomplishes a lot more than a brief review can mention. One of its greatest merits is the convincing and coherent narrative which strings together a large number of apparently disparate works around an axis which is at one and the same time a literary one — the uncanny and its Gothic repertoire — and extra-literary: searching for meaning in both recent past and in contemporary events. Admirably well researched, Haunted Serbia offers an invaluable insight into a turbulent though fruitful period of Serbia’s literary history, which up until now was uncharted territory.’ — Zoran Milutinović, Slavonic and East European Review 95.2, April 2017, 353-54 (full text online)
  • ‘David A. Norris, direttore del Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies dell’Università di Nottingham, disegna un panorama della narrativa a tema bellico nella letteratura serba della seconda metà del XX secolo guardando ad essa dall’angolatura delle “ways in which narrative fiction represents the changing relationship between past and present in times of crisis” (p. 35)... L’interessante sintesi di D. A. Norris, proprio per la complessità del materiale da essa messo in circolazione, induce a più di qualche riflessione.’ — Janja Jerkov, Ricerche Slavistiche N.S. 14, 2016, 560-72
  • ‘In this well-informed, logically structured study, David A. Norris o ers a lucid and original interpretation of important and in uential Serbian narrative ction between the demise of Tito in 1980 and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.’ — Ralph Bogert, Slavic Review Summer 2018, 510-12

Heine und die Weltliteratur
Edited by T. J. Reed and Alexander Stillmark
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2000

  • ‘Heine was a great reader in the literary patrimony. Every study of his reading experience from youth to deathbed has expanded its dimensions... an admirable volume.’ — Jeffrey L. Sammons, Modern Language Review 97.1, 2002, 228-9 (full text online)
  • Vridhagiri Ganeshan, Germanistik 42.3-4, 2001, 737
  • ‘In a richly diverse range of approaches, a number of new readings of the poems are offered... demonstrates the arresting power of the poet.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies xxxix/1, 2003, 104
  • ‘The volume provides much that is both instructive and enjoyable to read. Joseph Kruse's elegant and learned opening piece provides a perfect keynote address... Ritchie Robertson (in an article that is destined to be recommended to thousands of students) throws fresh light on Atta Troll by examining the nature of mock epic as such as well as its relations to the epic traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance... David Constantine tackles the tricky subject of the Lazarus poems. It is easy to be moved by these, much harder to discuss them intelligently, but Constantine succeeds both in analysing the implications of the Lazarus motif and in making some thought-provoking remarks about poetry and horror. The volume concludes on a high note with a stylish piece by Anthony Phelan on Heine's heirs among contemporary poets.’ — David Pugh, Seminar XXXIX/4, 2003, 360-3

The History of Language Learning and Teaching III: Across Cultures
Edited by Nicola McLelland and Richard Smith
Legenda (General Series) vol 3 of 3•30 September 2018

  • ‘Es erhebe nicht den Anspruch, seinen Gegenstand ganz abzudecken, sondern biete “an illustrative sample of in-depth studies” (I: 2). Doch möchte es das Studium der Geschichte des Fremdsprachenlehrens und -lernens (“History of Language Learning and Teaching”, HoLLT) wenn nicht begründen, so doch maß- geblich begleiten, denn bisher sei die Forschung an verschiedenen Stellen getrennt und unkoordiniert betrieben worden (I: 3–4). Mit diesem Werk werde HoLLT etabliert oder gar zu einer Disziplin erweitert (I: 5).’ — Helmut Glück, Historiographia Linguistica 46.1, 2019, 208-17 (full text online)
  • ‘The studies cover analyses of instruction books and didactic materials, and the cultural representations and values found in those; teaching and education policies or applications of phonetics for teaching. One study also examines creating and maintaining international penfriend networks.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.4, October 2019, 496 (full text online)
  • ‘As far as I know, this three-volume collection is the first-ever attempt at a comparative and truly global history of our discipline... The three volumes just discussed constitute a treasure trove to the riches of which a single reviewer can do scant justice.’ — Arthur van Essen, ELT Journal 74.1, January 2020, 89-93
  • ‘The three volumes of The History of Language Learning and Teaching offer a significant contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary, intercultural and plurilinguistic research area of historical foreign language didactics... a very stimulating and rich mosaic of FLT history.’ — Britta Juska-Bacher, Paedagogica Historica online, 25 Nov 2020 (full text online)
  • ‘Edited collections of this breadth and quality are rare and these three volumes make an important and vitalising contribution to the multidisciplinary field of HoLLT. The extensive range of case studies provides a highly readable and scholarly reference which will be undoubtedly valued by language teachers and students and researchers of language and education historiography.’ — Simon Coffey, Language & History 31 Mar 2020 (full text online)

The History of Language Learning and Teaching II: 19th-20th Century Europe
Edited by Nicola McLelland and Richard Smith
Legenda (General Series) vol 2 of 3•30 September 2018

  • ‘Es erhebe nicht den Anspruch, seinen Gegenstand ganz abzudecken, sondern biete “an illustrative sample of in-depth studies” (I: 2). Doch möchte es das Studium der Geschichte des Fremdsprachenlehrens und -lernens (“History of Language Learning and Teaching”, HoLLT) wenn nicht begründen, so doch maß- geblich begleiten, denn bisher sei die Forschung an verschiedenen Stellen getrennt und unkoordiniert betrieben worden (I: 3–4). Mit diesem Werk werde HoLLT etabliert oder gar zu einer Disziplin erweitert (I: 5).’ — Helmut Glück, Historiographia Linguistica 46.1, 2019, 208-17 (full text online)
  • ‘As far as I know, this three-volume collection is the first-ever attempt at a comparative and truly global history of our discipline... The three volumes just discussed constitute a treasure trove to the riches of which a single reviewer can do scant justice.’ — Arthur van Essen, ELT Journal 74.1, January 2020, 89-93
  • ‘The three volumes of The History of Language Learning and Teaching offer a significant contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary, intercultural and plurilinguistic research area of historical foreign language didactics... a very stimulating and rich mosaic of FLT history.’ — Britta Juska-Bacher, Paedagogica Historica online, 25 Nov 2020 (full text online)
  • ‘Edited collections of this breadth and quality are rare and these three volumes make an important and vitalising contribution to the multidisciplinary field of HoLLT. The extensive range of case studies provides a highly readable and scholarly reference which will be undoubtedly valued by language teachers and students and researchers of language and education historiography.’ — Simon Coffey, Language & History 31 Mar 2020 (full text online)

The History of Language Learning and Teaching I: 16th-18th Century Europe
Edited by Nicola McLelland and Richard Smith
Legenda (General Series) vol 1 of 3•30 September 2018

  • ‘Es erhebe nicht den Anspruch, seinen Gegenstand ganz abzudecken, sondern biete “an illustrative sample of in-depth studies” (I: 2). Doch möchte es das Studium der Geschichte des Fremdsprachenlehrens und -lernens (“History of Language Learning and Teaching”, HoLLT) wenn nicht begründen, so doch maß- geblich begleiten, denn bisher sei die Forschung an verschiedenen Stellen getrennt und unkoordiniert betrieben worden (I: 3–4). Mit diesem Werk werde HoLLT etabliert oder gar zu einer Disziplin erweitert (I: 5).’ — Helmut Glück, Historiographia Linguistica 46.1, 2019, 208-17 (full text online)
  • ‘As far as I know, this three-volume collection is the first-ever attempt at a comparative and truly global history of our discipline... The three volumes just discussed constitute a treasure trove to the riches of which a single reviewer can do scant justice.’ — Arthur van Essen, ELT Journal 74.1, January 2020, 89-93
  • ‘The three volumes of The History of Language Learning and Teaching offer a significant contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary, intercultural and plurilinguistic research area of historical foreign language didactics... a very stimulating and rich mosaic of FLT history.’ — Britta Juska-Bacher, Paedagogica Historica online, 25 Nov 2020 (full text online)
  • ‘Edited collections of this breadth and quality are rare and these three volumes make an important and vitalising contribution to the multidisciplinary field of HoLLT. The extensive range of case studies provides a highly readable and scholarly reference which will be undoubtedly valued by language teachers and students and researchers of language and education historiography.’ — Simon Coffey, Language & History 31 Mar 2020 (full text online)

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

Image and Word: Reflections of Art and Literature
Edited by Antonella Braida and Giuliana Pieri
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2003

Image, Eye and Art in Calvino: Writing Visibility
Edited by Birgitte Grundtvig, Martin McLaughlin and Lene Waage Petersen
Legenda (General Series) •23 February 2007

  • ‘Andrea Battistini's chapter, finally, is one of the most enjoyable; it could be defined as the critical equivalent of Eco’s novel La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana, in the sense that it shows quite convincingly how the "fantastic iconology of cartoons" and comic books is deeply rooted in Calvino's imagination and how this could be traced in his narrative style, also testifying to the extent of Calvino's engagement with the products of mass culture.’ — Pierpaolo Antonello, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 210-12 (full text online)
  • ‘These notes give but a hint of the richness of Image, Eye and Art in Calvino. This is a compelling volume for Calvino scholars; it should also have a strong appeal for those more generally interested in the relation between the verbal and the visual.’ — Luca Pocci, Angles on the English-Speaking World 8, 2008, 127-29
  • ‘A vital tool for further research not only into the works of Calvino but also into the contemporary cultural interweaving of literature and the arts.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.1, January 2011

In the Light of Contradiction: Desire in the Poetry of Federico García Lorca
Roberta Ann Quance
Legenda (General Series) •12 April 2010

  • ‘Never dull, Quance has the ability to provoke thought, to make us look anew at material that invites reinterpretation.’ — C. Brian Morris, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 89.2, 2012, 313-15
  • ‘Finely nuanced and very compelling... Given its overall thoroughness, quality, and insight, there are surely good chances that In the Light of Contradiction will refocus a portion of the enormous interest in Lorca’s work to one of its lesser studied corners.’ — Andrew A. Anderson, Revista de Estudios Hispanicos 46.1 (March 2012), 158-60
  • ‘This book sets out to prove [that these three works were part of a poetic cycle] and it does do so, providing on the journey a very enlightening snapshot of Lorca’s frame of mind... Well researched and clearly written... An excellent addition to scholarly studies on Spain’s most important modern poet.’ — Stephen M. Hart, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 89.2 (2012), 213-14
  • ‘We have, for the first time in Lorca studies, an analysis of the three books [Suites, Canciones, and Poema del cante jondo] side by side. Moreover, this is the first time that Poema del cante jondo has been studied in a monograph in conjunction with the Suites... This is a sophisticated monograph yet also an entertaining one. It should compel Hispanists to observe Federico García Lorca’s poetry in a new and exciting perspective.’ — Laura Burgos-Lejonagoitia, Modern Language Review 108.2, April 2013, 654-56 (full text online)

In(ter)discipline: New Languages for Criticism
Edited by Gillian Beer, Malcolm Bowie and Beate Perrey
Legenda (General Series) •14 December 2007

  • ‘Emerging from conferences organized between 2002 and 2006 within a research project New Languages for Criticism: Cross Currents and Resistances, this compendium addresses the question of the search within the modern humanities for new languages for criticism in the light of a broadening awareness of the increasingly interdisciplinary or intermedial nature of cultural production and research.’ — David Scott, French Studies 514-15
  • ‘The ambition, expertise and disciplinary breadth of this collection are exhilarating... Malcolm Bowie’s celebration of the ‘wonderfully impure acts of translation, of provocation, of risk-taking, and of abyssmanship that musical experience involves’ (p. 72) might equally describe this collection of essays. Often lyrical and innovative in their critical style, these essays by distinguished contributors... are also an important contribution to the definition and exploration of interdisciplinarity itself.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.1, 2012, 112

Inheritance in Nineteenth-Century French Culture: Wealth, Knowledge and the Family
Andrew J. Counter
Legenda (General Series) •12 April 2010

  • ‘That the [19th] century felt disinherited is a truism. Andrew Counter's absorbing book makes clear the extent to which the inheritance laws of the Revolution, and more particularly of the Code Civil of 1804, were themselves at the core of this new cultural moment... A pleasantly written, exhaustively researched and resourcefully argued book.’ — Ross Chambers, French Forum 36.1, 2011, 140-42
  • ‘This important work charts new critical terrain... a work of fastidious scholarship, written with brio, and captivating for the reader.’ — Claire White, French Studies 65.4, 2011, 543-44
  • ‘Counter is careful to avoid unnecessary jargon; his prose is clear and the humorous asides that pepper the study, far from detracting from the argument, make this a very enjoyable read. This is a thorough, thoughtful study which elegantly weaves together literary, political, and legal discourses and in doing so sheds new light on a hitherto little-explored but extremely rich topic. At every turn, the author carefully eschews the obvious, instead choosing the path less travelled... This subtle and intelligent study succeeds in redefining our understanding of family and inheritance in the nineteenth century, and the importance of this seminal monograph should resonate widely within and beyond French Studies.’ — Floriane Place-Verghnes, Modern Language Review 107.1, January 2012, 286-87 (full text online)
  • ‘There is enough background information in this well-conceived and clearly-written study to make the analyses accessible to those unfamiliar with the works discussed, and enough original interpretation and careful referencing to make it an enjoyable and engaging read for both cultural historians and literary scholars.’ — Laurey Martin-Berg, French Review 85.3, 2012, 547-48
  • ‘Impressive in its careful historical approach, the range of material it engages, and its perceptive readings on themes of testaments, greed, crime, family, and women’s renunciation of property... Counter’s interdisciplinary book illustrates that society cannot be understood through any single model of the family or type of 'family knowledge'.’ — Sarah Bernthal, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 42.3-4, Summer 2014

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)

Intellectual Life and Literature at Solovki 1923-1930: The Paris of the Northern Concentration Camps
Andrea Gullotta
Legenda (General Series) •15 January 2018

  • ‘Small and remote as it is, Solovki has always been central to Russian culture. Nearly all the central themes of Russian history — the power and schisms of the Orthodox Church and its intimacy with the state; the development of the Gulag — are reflected, or more often anticipated, in its history... The legacy of the Terror remains a battlefield. Books as scrupulously researched as Gullotta’s are invaluable.’ — Robert Chandler, Financial Times 27 April 2018
  • ‘Gullotta’s case study of the SLON camp serves as a model for studies of Gulag writing, and makes a bold statement in favor of a new, synthesizing discourse about Gulag literature... All students of Russian literature and of the human condition owe a debt to Andrea Gullotta, who has tread on virgin snow, following in no one’s footsteps.’ — Lydia Roberts, Los Angeles Review of Books 3 May 2018
  • ‘Gullotta’s scholarly, in-depth but quite readable book primarily examines the content of the printed output of work from Solovki in the early period 1923-30 and also considers the circumstances of its production, including the constantly shifting and always ambivalent relations between prisoners and camp administration.’ — Trevor Pateman, Reading This Book Online, 2018
  • ‘Gullotta’s commendable study opens up a new area of Gulag research and adds considerably to our knowledge of the literature of the Soviet labour camps.’ — Sarah J. Young, Slavonic and East European Review 98.3, July 2020, 563-65 (full text online)
  • ‘An invaluable addition to a growing body of texts dedicated to understanding the multifaceted and complex cultural arena of Soviet labour camps. Gullotta effectively captures the uniqueness and plurality of the Solovki camp experience, preserving the many voices of the camp for future generations of historians and researchers.’ — Julie Draskoczy Zigoris, Modern Language Review 116.3, July 2021, 521-23 (full text online)

Intimacy and Distance: Conflicting Cultures in Nineteenth-Century France
Philippa Lewis
Legenda (General Series) •29 September 2017

  • ‘L’ouvrage ne se contente pas d’explorer les productions littéraires de l’intime (du roman intime au récit de voyage) mais s’appuie sur une belle et riche variété de formes littéraires et culturelles (journaux intimes, portraits littéraires, critique d’art) pour mettre en évidence la hiérarchie des valeurs à l’œuvre dans la notion d’intime.’ — Françoise Grauby, French Studies 72.3, July 2018, 459
  • ‘Philippa Lewis’s fresh, thoughtful overview of the virtual relationships between French authors and readers between 1830 and 1870 focuses on selected works by Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, Eugène Fromentin, Maurice de Guérin, and C.-A. Sainte-Beuve... She effectively synthesizes the deconstructive distinguo move of deconstruction—dissecting specious identities—with a discreet historical consciousness that alternatively discloses new ranges of possibilities and then contracts into a synthesis. Brief, thoughtful footnotes extend Lewis’s discussions in many directions, revealing her exemplary deep background.’ — Laurence M. Porter, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 47.1-2, Fall 2018
  • ‘In this thoughtful and suggestive monograph, Philippa Lewis offers a carefully historicized, thoroughly researched, and beautifully written account of the place occupied by the concept of intimacy in the literary culture of nineteenth-century France, and especially its middle decades... The book’s true point, and its greatest merit, is to get under the skin—intus, et in cute—of nineteenth-century French letters; to reanimate with a careful balance of sympathy and erudition a somewhat forgotten yet profoundly influential moment in the history of literary thought. In this respect, the book will be of compelling interest to all scholars of nineteenth-century France.’ — Andrew J. Counter, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 146-47 (full text online)
  • ‘Accompagnato da una bibliogra a veramente ricca e da un dettagliato indice dei nomi, il saggio di Philippa Lewis si occupa nella prima parte dell’Intimacy, prendendo come punto di partenza un saggio di Henry James su Sainte-Beuve, in cui l’autore mostra il carattere “intimo” della scrittura come una caratteristica di una importante zona della letteratura francese del xix secolo: «poésie intime, the roman intime, and the journal intime».’ — Maria Emanuela Raffi, Studi francesi 186, 20, 2019, 516-17
  • ‘Lewis’s convincing argument revolves around the idea that male authors writing after 1830, including both well- and lesser-known writers such as Flaubert, Euge`ne Fromentin, and above all Baudelaire, employed certain textual strategies as a result of their ambivalent feelings towards intimacy... This study constitutes a very significant addition to the existing corpus of works on the cultural and literary history of intimacy.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.1, January 2019, 119
  • ‘A very well-researched and engaging contribution to the literary history of nineteenth-century France, the social and cultural history of emotions, Baudelaire studies, and historical masculinity studies. By deprivileging distance as the primary spatial and affective metaphor for understanding post-revolutionary French society and restoring intimacy to its rightful place on the cultural and literary landscape, Lewis successfully complicates one of the foundational paradigms of nineteenth-century French studies, making her book a compelling read for all scholars in the field.’ — Jessica Tanner, H-France 19, February 2019, no. 27
  • ‘This book is written with admirable clarity and, via the lens of intimacy, offers original perspectives on some well-known and lesser-known writers, while also shedding light on the emotional history of the nineteenth century.’ — Paul Gibbard, Emotions: History, Culture, Society 3, 2019, 174-75

Invention: The Language of English Renaissance Poetics
Rocío G. Sumillera
Legenda (General Series) •23 September 2019

  • ‘Distrust of the role of originality in Renaissance poesis often leads literary scholars to prioritize logico-rhetorical accounts of invention, which recommended writers to select their topics from authoritative discursive repertoires. Rocío G. Sumillera’s meticulous critical history of poetic invention up to Renaissance England is a persuasive caveat about our need to revise those notions.’ — Zenón Luis-Martínez, Parergon 38.1, 2021, 260-61 (full text online)
  • ‘Taken together, Sumillera and Baron's books [Scarlett Baron, The Riddle of Creativity] cover literature and theory from Aristotle to the present. Each book reaches widely across European languages, combining science, theology and linguistics with conventional literary works. They look from opposite directions at the vanishing point that is the Romantic ideal of the artist as a lamp or organic entity, existing free from influence of any kind. The scope and ambition of the two projects is impressive. There is a great deal here to admire.’ — Bart van Es, Times Literary Supplement 11 December 2020
  • ‘This is a wide-ranging and well-argued piece of work, with a comprehensive and useful bibliography. It makes an extremely valuable contribution to the study of a concept which must be at the heart of our understanding of literary composition in the Renaissance.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 57.1, 2021, 142 (full text online)
  • ‘All in all, this is a detailed yet wide-ranging scholarly book that will serve students and scholars equally well. Although its focus is English Renaissance poetics, the breadth of reference to European sources gives this study a notable ballast and breadth. Sumillera is particularly adept at the selection and presentation of primary quotations, finding the perfect examples — and plenty of them — to illustrate her argument. This makes the book a great resource, as well as a pleasure to read.’ — Catherine Bates, Modern Language Review 117.2, 2022, 278-79 (full text online)
  • ‘This much-needed book is a comprehensive and thoroughly researched chronological overview of the concept of the invention of topics (inventio) in poetry, as it was originally understood in classical rhetoric, that lies at the heart of Renaissance theories of imitation as individual composition.’ — Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance and Reformation 44.4, Fall 2021, 311-13 (full text online)

Ismail Kadare: The Writer and the Dictatorship 1957-1990
Peter Morgan
Legenda (General Series) •11 February 2010

  • ‘Morgan shows convincingly why Kadare experienced this change of direction [from attempting to influence Hoxha to a more subversive approach], explaining the zigs and zags of Albanian politics which shaped the environment in which the writer worked, and in particular Hoxha’s ambiguous role as protector and persecutor... Thorough, erudite, and readable, with interesting photographs. Both Kadare and the Albanian Communist regime remain mysterious in many ways, but Morgan’s book sheds considerable light on both, and will be an invaluable companion to the novels.’ — Anne White, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1203-05 (full text online)

The Italian Renaissance: A Zest for Life
Edited by Michel Jeanneret and Nicolas Ducimetière
Legenda (General Series) •15 May 2017

  • ‘This is a Renaissance that triumphantly emerges from the dark ages of medieval Europe, bringing with it the birth of an ideal society guided by beauty and love, thus giving rise to one of the most extraordinary creative seasons of poetry, architecture, and art that the world has ever known... Yves Bonnefoy gives a moving account of his youthful discovery, in a still deserted post-war Florence, of the Brancacci Chapel... The most remarkable pages, however, of these many and memorable contributions are those by Michel Butor, sadly deceased in the same year in which the book was published. Always concerned with ‘micro-événements’ [...] Butor simply fixes his (and our) attention on every tiny detail of Antonello da Messina’s Renaissance image of the Middle Ages in his painting of Saint Jerome in his Study, reading (one presumes) his own historic translation of the Bible. The sense of this descriptive tour de force becomes clear in a final poem in which Butor identifies himself with Antonello.’ — Hilary Gatti, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 887-89 (full text online)

Italy in Crisis: 1494
Edited by Jane Everson and Diego Zancani
Legenda (General Series) •1 November 2000

  • ‘The eight chapters are prefaced by a stimulating introduction, and rounded off by a helpful index: in all a splendid collection of original and scholarly essays.’ — Paul Diffley, Italian Studies LVII, 2002, 167-8
  • notice, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 62, 2000, 395

Jacques Derrida and the Institution of French Philosophy
Vivienne Orchard
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011

  • ‘Orchard’s careful attention to significant details promises to refresh thinking in an important area of theory and philosophy.’ — Sarah Wood, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 581

John Ruskin's Continental Tour 1835: The Written Records and Drawings
Edited by Keith Hanley and Caroline S. Hull
Legenda (General Series) •19 December 2016

  • ‘At a time when scholars often find it difficult to find support for editions of archival and biographical materials relating to significant cultural figures, it is pleasing that this important volume has found its way into print through the endeavours of the editors and the MHRA, whose Legenda imprint makes high-quality editions of such materials available... The edition is perfectly conceived and delivers something approaching perfection. It should be of interest beyond Ruskin Studies, particularly to scholars of Romantic art, poetry, and landscape tourism, nineteenth-century travel, and Victorian science.’ — Mark Frost, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 863-64 (full text online)
  • ‘The interest of the texts collected in this volume is on the whole remarkable. They represent a variety of literary genres ranging from the prose diary, the letter in verse, the dramatic sketch, the short story narrative, genres through which the same travel matter is shaped and reshaped, demonstrating the precociousness and versatility of Ruskin’s genius, his witty ironic vein, but also his brilliant mastery of prose... The recent interest in emotional labour involved in diary and travel writing will certainly profit from the fresh material unearthed by this critical edition.’ — Emma Sdegno, Review of English Studies 69, September 2018, 803-05 (full text online)

John Ruskin's Correspondence with Joan Severn: Sense and Nonsense Letters
Edited by Rachel Dickinson
Legenda (General Series) •23 December 2008

  • ‘This book is one of the most significant contributions to Ruskin scholarship in recent years. It is essential reading for anyone who wishes not merely to understand the relationship between Ruskin and his cousin, but also to understand how in those later decades he used the correspondence to empower himself ‘in the public sphere by disempowering himself in the private’; it corrects many misunderstandings along the way. It is a brave, challenging, discomforting, heartbreaking book, full of insight.’ — Alan Davis, The Ruskin Review and Bulletin Autumn 2009
  • ‘Once in a while a book comes along that you hadn’t known that you needed, but once read you wonder why no one ever took the subject matter in hand before ~ and this book is one of those rare delights.’ — Friends of Ruskin's Brantwood Autumn 2009)
  • ‘These letters are heretofore unpublished. Ruskin scholars have found these challenging, with their baby-talk, apparent nonsense, and unelaborated personal references, yet they contain important expressions of Ruskin’s opinions on travel, fashion, the ideal arts and crafts home, effective education, and other questions, and Ruskin often used his letters to Severn as a substitute for his personal diary.’ — The Year's Work in English Studies 2011, 699)

Jorge Semprún: Writing the European Other
Ursula Tidd
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2014

The Journalist in the French Fin-de-siècle Novel: Enfants de la presse
Kate Rees
Legenda (General Series) •26 February 2018

  • ‘L’ouvrage de Rees est donc intéressant et riche, on ne peut qu’en recommander la lecture. Il constitue une excellente synthèse de la recherche en direction du public anglophone, tout en apportant son propre regard sur les représentations du journalisme.’ — Guillaume Pinson, French Studies 73.2, April 2019, 312 (full text online)
  • ‘An excellent new analysis of the figure of the journalist in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French fiction. It will be a significant guide for future studies of the French press and the French journalist, and it serves as a reminder of the historical importance of journalists and the press, especially in today’s world of “fake news” campaigns and anti- media attacks that aim to silence the essential role of journalists in our society.’ — Juliette M. Rogers, H-France 19.70, May 2019
  • ‘Kate Rees’s fine new monograph takes us into a world both strange and familiar: magazine and newspaper publishing in the Belle Époque... Rees produces rich and detailed readings of all the texts she considers, unfolding their complexities with great subtlety while drawing in ideas from fields as diverse as phenomenology and remediation theory. A substantial and significant research content has been orchestrated with a sure touch, resulting in a monograph which will be of interest not only to dix-neuviémistes but to anyone concerned with the relationship between literature and journalism, and the latter’s role in shaping modern culture.’ — Emma Bielecki, Modern Language Review 115.3, July 2020, 729-30 (full text online)

Journeys of Remembrance: Memories of the Second World War in French and German Literature, 1960-1980
Kathryn N. Jones
Legenda (General Series) •23 February 2007

  • ‘A fascinating and well-structured approach to a complex subject, and its transnational focus not only provides an original insight into a range of European writers, but also shows how profitable it is to go beyond the more usual national studies of memory and war.’ — Hilary Footitt, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 817-17 (full text online)
  • ‘The study is about memories and impressions of the later years' holocaust... The striking photograph shows us an empty world with a bleak railway line and its sidetracks, making their way into the fearful forested world that was Auschwitz, practically a symbol of the Final Solution. And with this in mind, Kathryn Jones's study is a success.’ — John Dunmore, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 29.2, 2008, 65-66
  • ‘Jones departs unequivocally from Adorno's dictat on the incompatibility of art and atrocity and, through her deft presentation of a succession of more or less metaphorical journeys, she makes a good case. This valuable book for all scholars of post-war French and Ger man culture will enhance the reader’s understanding of what Paul Ricoeur once termed 'l'événement fondateur négatif' of the last century.’ — David Platten, French Studies 63.3 (2009), 370-71
  • ‘An ambitious study that succeeds in bearing out its claims about diverse yet contemporaneous literary responses to WWII. Journeys of Remembrance is a valuable introduction to a body of post-WWII French and German writing concerned with the intergenerational transmission of memory and the relation between personal identity and cultural legacy.’ — Susan Derwin, Monatshefte 102.1, 2010, 118-20
  • ‘An illuminating comparative analysis... Offers much to consider concerning the development and transmission of memory, generational continuity and rupture, and fictional representation in Holocaust literature.’ — Homer B. Sutton, French Review 82.5, April 2009, 1066-67

Labours of Attention: Work, Class and Society in French and Francophone Literature and Culture
Adam Watt
Legenda (General Series) •13 September 2022

Language and Social Structure in Urban France
Edited by Mari C. Jones and David Hornsby
Legenda (General Series) •4 December 2013

  • ‘From a variationist’s perspective, this is an insightful volume, methodical in its approach to the subject matter, and careful to consider existing research from across the social sciences. Its overarching aims are very well addressed, and the proposals outlined by the contributors will undoubtedly form an important part of future research on Metropolitan French. The volume’s undoubted strength and significant contribution comes from the break in the ‘reciprocal ignorance pact’ (Fishman 1991) that characterises the relationship between sociology and sociolinguistics. As Pooley rightly suggests (p. 209), it is this break in tradition that must now spearhead new avenues of research.’ — Jonathan R. Kasstan, Journal of French Language Studies 26.2, July 2016, 209-11

Language, the Novelist and National Identity in Post-Franco Catalonia
Kathryn Crameri
Legenda (General Series) •1 July 2000

  • Modern Language Review 97.3, 2002, 741-42) (full text online)
  • ‘The global rebirth of nationality studies in the humanities, now well into its second decade, has largely coincided with attempts in Catalonia to flesh out the decentralizing provisions of Spain's 1978 Constitution... Crameri provides us with a valuable new tool for enhancing our understanding of these important and ongoing processes.’ — Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXX, 2003, 385-7)