Published September 2010
Uncharted Depths: Descent Narratives in English and French Children’s Literature
Kiera Vaclavik
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘Seeks to draw new attention to the complexity and critical importance of nineteenth-century writing for children, and, indeed, to defend children’s literature more generally as a serious object of study... The volume’s moves through Homer, Virgil, and Dante are very rewarding.’ — Emma Wilson, French Studies 65.3, July 2011, 410-11
- ‘This strong study leaves very little to be desired... The precision and the originality of Vaclavik’s views opens up a wide-range of new questions.’ — Nicole Biagioli, International Research Society for Children's Literature online
- ‘By the end of the book it is clear that when we look at the role of the Underworld in children’s literature, we are in no way descending in status. Rather, we are reminded not only of the vital role played by children’s books in shaping the Homers, Virgils and Dantes of successive generations, but also of the fact that, to date, children’s literature has been a significant lacuna in the reception studies of these authors. Vaclavik’s elegant book plays an admirable role in filling that gap.’ — Fiona Cox, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.07.25
Published March 2011
Reading Games in the Greek Novel
Eleni Papargyriou
Legenda (General Series)
Published July 2011
Examining Whiteness: Reading Clarice Lispector through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison
Lucia Villares
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘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
Textual Wanderings: The Theory and Practice of Narrative Digression
Edited by Rhian Atkin
Legenda (General Series)
The Truth of Realism: A Reassessment of the German Novel 1830-1900
John Walker
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘An ambitious contribution to a revaluation of German realism that will have to be weighed and taken into account in any further treatment of the topic.’ — Jeffrey L. Sammons, Monatshefte 104.1, 2012, 130-33
- ‘This volume offers a new approach to German Realism and contributes to research that establishes a reading of German Realist literature as in no ways inferior to other European Realist traditions, which has been the dominant viewpoint for decades.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2, 2013, 227
- ‘Cultural studies, systems theory, postcolonial studies, gender studies, media history, and a number of other more recent approaches have given new impetus to research into nineteenth-century Realism and initiated a reassessment of German Realism within the overarching European development from Romanticism to Modernism. Walker’s study of a small number of selected novels by Keller, Raabe, and Fontane makes an interesting contribution to this reassessment by arguing that ‘the distinguishing capacity of German narrative realism, and the source of that realism’s unique contribution to the European tradition’ is the critique of internalized ideology.’ — Dirk Göttsche, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 847-48 (full text online)
Gender, Nation and the Formation of the Twentieth-Century Mexican Literary Canon
Sarah E. L. Bowskill
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘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
Published August 2011
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)
- ‘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)
Published June 2012
Women, Genre and Circumstance: Essays in Memory of Elizabeth Fallaize
Edited by Margaret Atack, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight and Judith Still
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘Like the woman to whom it pays tribute, and whose haunting gaze looks out at us from its cover, this volume of essays combines intellectual rigour with humanity, serious purpose with humour, depth of insight with lightness of touch.’ — Julia Waters, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (November 2012), 505-06
- ‘A powerful and moving reminder of the lineaments and achievements of [Elizabeth Fallaize's] scholarly work. Equally, as critical explorations of a variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century narrative artefacts and practices, [these essays] are a pleasure to read, combining to create a collection that is an academic delight and would certainly have delighted the woman to whom it is dedicated.’ — Alex Hughes, French Studies 67.2 (April 2013), 294-95
- ‘The chapters which form this scholarly homage... keep the dialogue open with a scholar, teacher, feminist and mentor who spent her life engaging with French literature. Yet, each contribution, particularly those of Michèle le Doeuff, Ursula Tidd and Diana Holmes, offers intellectual stimulation in its own right.’ — France Grenaudier-Klign, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 34.2, 2014, 130-32
Published February 2013
French Divorce Fiction from the Revolution to the First World War
Nicholas White
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘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
Published March 2013
Shandean Humour in English and German Literature and Philosophy
Edited by Klaus Vieweg, James Vigus and Kathleen M. Wheeler
Legenda (General Series)
Form and Feeling in Modern Literature: Essays in Honour of Barbara Hardy
Edited by William Baker with Isobel Armstrong
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘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
Published June 2013
Taboo: Corporeal Secrets in Nineteenth-Century France
Hannah Thompson
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘One of the principal merits of the book is that it is a study of how the ‘unspeakable’ manages to find a voice and how taboo excesses can be represented in language. It provides a reflective and stimulating commentary on the ways in which what is not usually talked about signifies and matters.’ — Françoise Grauby, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 809-10 (full text online)
- ‘With such an array of taboo subjects, it struck me that it would have been hard to know where to begin, but one of the things I like best about this book is its craftsmanship... I think scholars and students will find much to discuss in Taboo.’ — Holly Christine Woodson, H-France 14.101, June 2014
- ‘Throughout, Thompson identifies a variety of critical perspectives that throw those taboos into sharper focus, from seminal reference points such as Freud, Sontag and Butler to the emerging field of Disability Studies, resulting in a thought-provoking exploration.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.4, October 2014, 510
- ‘This monograph is an incisive study of representations of the unspeakable taboo body... Thompson’s lucid work argues that analysis of the form and function of the taboo encourages readers to re-examine their own values and preconceived notions towards the body. This study is especially useful to scholars of nineteenth-century French literature, gender studies, and disability studies.’ — Karen Humphreys, French Studies 69.3, July 2015, 403-04
- ‘This is a valuable contribution to the growing field of studies investigating the literary body.’ — Bernadette Lintz, French Review 89.1, 2015, 282
- ‘This examination of some of the best-known prose in nineteenth-century French literature is especially masterful for the thoughtful – sometimes stunning – deployment of the readings and the overall structure of the study... In its sweeping consideration of the body in disarray, Thompson’s study places itself squarely within studies of the body while also relying upon the tenets of newer arenas of inquiry such as disability studies.’ — Tammy Berberi, Disability and Society 31.3, 2016, 431-33
Published September 2013
After Reception Theory: Fedor Dostoevskii in Britain, 1869-1935
Lucia Aiello
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘This new study complements a number of existing accounts of Dostoevsky reception in Britain and adds to our understanding of Anglo-Russian cul- tural exchange more generally. It also explores the current state of reception studies in the literary humanities (which it views rather pessimistically), creatively blurring the distinction between ques- tions of individual aesthetic reaction (‘reader response’) and patterns of transmission and cultural exchange.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 51.1, January 2015, 87
- ‘This book calls attention to the complexity of reception and literary criticism, analyzes temporal and geographic context, and stresses the importance and nuances of the cultural context in which a work and its criticism arise. Aiello's study re-evaluates a familiar theoretical framework, providing a new perspective for scholars in the field.’ — Megan Luttrell, Slavic and East European Journal 58.4, Winter 2014, 722-24
- ‘Fedor Dostoevskii once wrote in a letter to his brother, ‘Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled.’ Lucia Aiello’s new monograph traces the broad scope of social, psychological, and, most frequently, biographical criticism in Britain that has sought to unravel the mysteries of his major works.’ — Patrick Jeffery, Modern Language Review 111.2, April 2016, 600-601 (full text online)
Published December 2013
Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie I: Dreams of Knowledge
Malcolm Bowie
Legenda (General Series) vol 1 of 2
- ‘Only someone with Bowie’s exquisite powers of expression and formidably focused, well-stocked mind could home in so closely on the multilevelled play of thought in some of the most difficult modern writers, and especially on the places where their work crosses aesthetic boundaries... It is therefore a huge treat to be able to revel in the publication of his Selected Essays, impeccably edited by Alison Finch and beautifully produced by Legenda... Even in the space of a short review, Bowie’s writing offers both pleasure and intense mental stimulation. For readers old and new, there are marvels in store in these two magnificent volumes.’ — Michael Sheringham, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 422-23
- ‘These two volumes can only add to our sense of [Bowie's] importance... Criticism like this is clearly so much more than criticism: it is an engagement with the act of creation that is brought back to creation itself. These two volumes are full of brilliance and insight and deftly communicated and thus infectious pleasure.’ — Patrick McGuinness, Times Literary Supplement 5805, 4 July 2014, 21
- ‘His readings are always marked by a resistance to easy answers that would attempt to reduce or deny the complexity of the text under analysis; the role of the critic is to illuminate that complexity, giving close attention to the way the text functions and how it guides the reader to a range of potential interpretive moves. While he is a highly trustworthy guide through the intricacies of the text, as he himself writes in an essay on Mallarmé, 'somehow the passage through imbricated levels of utterance towards some final state of achieved propositional clarity is never quite the point' (I: 152).’ — Joseph Acquisto, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 43.1-2, 2014
- ‘How Verdi moves Shakespeare’s Othello around the globe, finding the mental ‘fingerprint’ in Winnicott, introducing Judith Butler, deciphering Stéphane Mallarmé, exploring brevity in Proust (yes), Liszt’s relationship with Wagner, ‘that most exhausting of sons-in-law’: these are just a few of the subjects considered with such zest by Malcolm Bowie, who was a critic of immense talent.’ — Edward Hughes, Times Higher Education Supplement 1 January 2015, 63
- ‘Evidence abounds in these pieces of Bowie’s keen appetite for intrinsically difficult subject-matter. Indeed, his ability to sustain his critical nerve in the handling of complex material was to become a hallmark of his achievement... Yet alongside this intensity of engagement with serious subject-matter, we also see the poise and panache of a critic who was so evidently at home with textual composition.’ — Edward J. Hughes, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 228-29 (full text online)
Selected Essays of Malcolm Bowie II: Song Man
Malcolm Bowie
Legenda (General Series) vol 2 of 2
- ‘Only someone with Bowie’s exquisite powers of expression and formidably focused, well-stocked mind could home in so closely on the multilevelled play of thought in some of the most difficult modern writers, and especially on the places where their work crosses aesthetic boundaries... It is therefore a huge treat to be able to revel in the publication of his Selected Essays, impeccably edited by Alison Finch and beautifully produced by Legenda... Even in the space of a short review, Bowie’s writing offers both pleasure and intense mental stimulation. For readers old and new, there are marvels in store in these two magnificent volumes.’ — Michael Sheringham, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 422-23
- ‘These two volumes can only add to our sense of [Bowie's] importance... Criticism like this is clearly so much more than criticism: it is an engagement with the act of creation that is brought back to creation itself. These two volumes are full of brilliance and insight and deftly communicated and thus infectious pleasure.’ — Patrick McGuinness, Times Literary Supplement 5805, 4 July 2014, 21
- ‘Bowie’s style appeals both to generalist and specialist readers; his clarity makes it possible for all to follow the argument even in his more technical writings, while the sharpness of his insights make his pieces for general audiences appealing to specialists as well. His writing always strikes a balance between sophistication and accessibility, often with a dose of wit (see especially his delightful self-review of Proust Among the Stars [II: 203-6]), allowing us to travel with him through our own areas of expertise and amateur interest.’ — Joseph Acquisto, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 43.1-2, 2014
- ‘How Verdi moves Shakespeare’s Othello around the globe, finding the mental ‘fingerprint’ in Winnicott, introducing Judith Butler, deciphering Stéphane Mallarmé, exploring brevity in Proust (yes), Liszt’s relationship with Wagner, ‘that most exhausting of sons-in-law’: these are just a few of the subjects considered with such zest by Malcolm Bowie, who was a critic of immense talent.’ — Edward Hughes, Times Higher Education Supplement 1 January 2015, 63
- ‘Evidence abounds in these pieces of Bowie’s keen appetite for intrinsically difficult subject-matter. Indeed, his ability to sustain his critical nerve in the handling of complex material was to become a hallmark of his achievement... Yet alongside this intensity of engagement with serious subject-matter, we also see the poise and panache of a critic who was so evidently at home with textual composition.’ — Edward J. Hughes, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 228-29 (full text online)
Published December 2014
Dostoevsky and the Epileptic Mode of Being
Paul Fung
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘Fung avoids the trap of a simplistic focus on Dostoevsky’s own real-life epilepsy. While noting the author's terror at the illness [...], he remains wisely off-trend by withholding any cod-scientific correlation between epilepsy and literary creativity. Fung’s interest is, rather, in what Dostoevsky wrote, more than the fact that his slow periods of recovery meant that he often could not write anything at all. And by focusing on ‘moments of caesuras and breaks’, Fung also sets himself apart from the myriad critics drawn to the famous scenes where verbal, and sometimes physical, arguments erupt with astonishing force... A Dostoevsky scholar to watch.’ — Andre van Loon, Review 31 online
- ‘It’s a great philosophical read, which squeezes Dostoevsky and his characters in and out of the minds of any number of puissant Western thinkers. It deserves a welcome and respected place up on the bookshelves of Academia, next to the many fascinating books on the life and works of that perverse and talented genius of Russian literature: Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.’ — U. R. Bowie, classical-russian-literature.blogspot.co.uk 7 July 2015
- ‘This book continues the philosophical discussion of Fedor Dostoevskii started by Friedrich Nietzsche, Lev Shestov, Alex de Jonge, and many others. Paul Fung de- scribes existential experiences of caesura (suspension), timelessness, and anticipation of death, which he attributes to some of Dostoevskii’s characters and, possibly, to the writer himself.’ — Irina Sirotkina, Slavic Review 75.1, Spring 2016, 210-11
- ‘Paul Fung opens new perspectives onto Dostoevsky's post-Siberian novels by focusing on their preoccupation, at once morbid and exalted, with the moment, whose ineffable paradoxes congeal metaphorically around the epileptic attack.’ — Mark R. Pettiss, Russian Review 75.1, 2016, 140-42
Published September 2016
Rewriting Les Mystères de Paris: The Mystères Urbains and the Palimpsest
Amy Wigelsworth
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘Presentant des demonstrations dont Jes etapes sont habilement resumees pour clore chaque chapitre, Rewriting Les Mysteres de Paris offre des etudes fouillees d'reuvres riches mais rarement traitees par la critique... La demonstration est convaincante et stimulante par Jes avenues de reflexion qu'elle ouvre.’ — Nicolas Gauthier, L'Esprit Créateur 57.1, 2017, 141
Lucidity: Essays in Honour of Alison Finch
Edited by Ian James and Emma Wilson
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘This carefully crafted volume offers subtle and sustained reflections on the theme of lucidity as it is manifested in a range of cultural forms and media... This volume of fine schol- arship is dedicated to Alison Finch. As such, it pays tribute to her writing, teaching, and personal qualities, and constitutes a fitting tribute to her own lucidity.’ — Shirley Jordan, French Studies 74.1, January 2020, 157 (full text online)
Published September 2017
Intimacy and Distance: Conflicting Cultures in Nineteenth-Century France
Philippa Lewis
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘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
Published February 2018
The Journalist in the French Fin-de-siècle Novel: Enfants de la presse
Kate Rees
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘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)
Published September 2018
The Poetics of Early Russian Crime Fiction 1860-1917: Deciphering Stories of Detection
Claire Whitehead
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘An intricately researched and fascinating exploration of the origins and development of a forgotten genre... Whitehead’s re- evaluation of Dostoevskii’s novels (including Brothers Karamazov) as crime literature is rewarding and insightful. Even more valuable, however, is her analysis of Dostoevskii’s forgotten peers, who created the landmarks of this fluid and reactive genre.’ — Muireann Maguire, Slavonic and East European Review 90.4, October 2020, 767-69 (full text online)
- ‘Яркая книга Клер Уайтхед убедительно демонстрирует, что отечественные исто- рики литературы напрасно не обращают внимания на чрезвычайно интересный, причем не только в тематическом плане, но и в идейном, и в плане поэтики, кри- минальный жанр русской литературы. Это (как и игнорирование отечественных фантастики, оккультной прозы, колониального романа, романа о городских жули- ках и мошенниках и т.д.) значительно обедняет картину русской литературы XIX — начала XX в. Кроме того, рассмотрение «Преступления и наказания» Достоевского и «Шведской спички» Чехова в контексте уголовной прозы позволило исследова- тельнице внести ценный вклад в интерпретацию этих произведений. И наконец, для отечественных литературоведов книга может послужить своего рода путево- дителем по современной англоязычной нарратологии.’ — A. I. Reitblat, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie 175, May/June 2022, 343-50
Published April 2019
Freedom and the Subject of Theory: Essays in Honour of Christina Howells
Edited by Oliver Davis and Colin Davis
Legenda (General Series)
Published July 2021
Self-Conscious Realism: Metafiction and the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel
Margarita Vaysman
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘Vaysman’s valuable work [...] encourage[s] further and more general scholarly accounts of the ways in which metapoetics worked as part of realism—and, more broadly, as part of the metapoetic aspect in the Russian cultural tradition.’ — Konstantine Klioutchkine, Russian Review 81.4, October 2022, 753-54
- ‘Vaysman has carried out an original investigation into a neglected subject, defining her work as a contribution to current discussion of realist writing as a transnational phenomenon and arguing that classical Russian literature was exceptionally rich in self-conscious narrative at a time when such narrative was rare in the French and English realist traditions.’ — Derek Offord, Slavonic and East European Review 100.3, July 2022, 533-35
- ‘Vaysman convincingly demonstrates that [nineteenth-century Russian novel] uses sophisticated narrative strategies that emphasize an uneasy relationship between the fictional worlds of literary texts and social reality [...]. Our hope is that the future of literary studies belongs to exactly this kind of studies: sophisticated and free from stereotypical approaches to its subjects.’ — Kirill Zubkov, Russian Literature 130, 2022, 95–109 (full text online)
- ‘A well-researched, innovative analysis of metafiction in the nineteenth-century Russian realist novel... Overall, Vaysman’s engaging, timely study should be considered essential reading for scholars who seek to understand nineteenth-century Russian literature more thoroughly, as well as for anyone who is interested in the complex correlation between politics and aesthetics.’ — Melissa L. Miller, Modern Language Review 2024, 119.1, 172-74 (full text online)
Published December 2021
From the Enlightenment to Modernism: Three Centuries of German Literature
Edited by Carolin Duttlinger, Kevin Hilliard, and Charlie Louth
Legenda (General Series)