The Made and the Found: Essays, Prose and Poetry in Honour of Michael Sheringham
Edited by Patrick McGuinness and Emily McLaughlin
Legenda (General Series) •25 May 2017

  • ‘Micky’s words return here in all their felicity. His appetite, brilliance, and distinct sensibility are intensely present. The editors speak of Micky ‘drawn by what was accidental, unsystematic, eccentric’ (p. ix). They see him glorying in ‘the overspill of things’. They speak of Micky as their ‘friend and colleague’ and this book is a beautiful act of camaraderie.’ — Emma Wilson, French Studies 72.3, July 2018, 485-86 (full text online)
  • ‘This starry roster of writers, working in English and French, often operate along lines of creative interplay between chance and choice, the map and serendipity, walking and writing, celebrating the transition from noticing to noting and from there maybe even into actually making poetry.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 375
  • ‘The Made and the Found is a rich volume that will be of interest to friends of the late Michael Sheringham as well as to all those wanting to study the relation between French culture, language and the everyday.’ — Verena Andermatt Conley, H-France 18.214, November 2018

Biographies and Autobiographies in Modern Italy
Edited by Martin McLaughlin and Peter Hainsworth
Legenda (General Series) •23 February 2007

  • ‘Hainsworth and McLaughlin open the volume with a succinct, clear and meaty disquisition on the nature of biography and autobiography. Their Introduction furnishes, in lively prose, an overview of the state of such writing in Italy... A fascinating glimpse into the life histories, and the shaping of life histories, by an eclectic group of Italians. Its chapters provide useful information on the less-known and engrossing new insights into familiar canonical figures.’ — Risa Sodi, Biography 32.3, Summer 2009, pp. 562-65
  • ‘These pieces all share John Woodhouse's sentiment that the life lived and written by an author are "mutually illuminating" and that writing loses much when "seen solely within the terms of a textual universe".’ — unsigned, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.1, January 2010, 107-08

Authorial Echoes: Textuality and Self-Plagiarism in the Narrative of Luigi Pirandello
Catherine O'Rawe
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2005

  • ‘A short review cannot do justice to this arresting critical work. A combination of bold ideas with a meticulous attention to detail and a broad theoretical foundation characterizes O'Rawe's critical approach. Insights are always well substantiated with abundant evidence... Both a major contribution to Pirandello scholarship and a seminal challenge to narrative criticism.’ — Jennifer Lorch, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1140-41 (full text online)

Traces of Trauma in W. G. Sebald and Christoph Ransmayr
Dora Osborne
Legenda (General Series) •4 March 2013

  • ‘Brought countless things to light about The Emigrants and Austerlitz that I am extremely grateful for, and I know I’ll never read either of these books again without saying a silent “thank you” to Osborne for opening my eyes to a new way of looking at them.’ — Terry Pitts, Vertigo 8 June 2013
  • ‘The detailed analyses and dynamic argumentation in addition to the illuminating introduction of the concept of ‘post-postwar literature’ make this study a significant contribution to scholarship on both Ransmayr and Sebald and to critical considerations of twentieth-century post-Holocaust literature in German more broadly.’ — Lynn L. Wolff, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 294-96 (full text online)
  • ‘Osborne has done a great service in awakening Sebald scholars to a kindred spirit in Ransmayr with a long-overdue systematic comparison of “traces of trauma” in the works of both immensely important writers, one a storied member of the literary establishment, one who will remain, even posthumously, an outsider looking in.’ — Mark R. McCulloh, Monatshefte 108.1, 2016, 150-52

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

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

I Suffer, Therefore I Am: Engaging with Empathy in Contemporary French Women’s Writing
Kathryn Robson
Research Monographs in French Studies 56•23 April 2019

  • ‘In this concise, fascinating book, Kathryn Robson explores text/reader relationships in a range of contemporary French women’s writing, including memoirs, fictional, and autofictional texts that relate to narratives of suffering--in particular, anorexia (chapter one), the death of a child (chapter two), and maternal filicide (chapter three), with chapter four focusing on autofictional narratives... Robson shows that it is all too easy to assume empathy, and that empathy can itselfdo damage to the other. Her study is important because it deals with why readers may feel uncomfortable towards narratives of suffering and, in interrogating empathy, offers some pointers towards newly negotiated ethical empathetic responses. We should read these narratives and try to approach others’ suffering, but we need to interrogate our responses to them and take responsibility for our readings. This is a wonderful, sensitive book, beautifully and thoughtfully written, and I whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who wants to t’ — Gill Rye, H-France 20.34, January 2020
  • ‘A stimulating, innovative, and insightful discussion of empathy and the reading process in relation to narratives of suffering. Furthermore, as well as considering the limits of empathy, Robson also challenges the limits of the reader by compelling him/her to engage with and reflect on difficult narrative themes such as parental grief and filicide. This study will appeal to a wide range of readers and researchers from diverse areas such as French Studies, Women’s Writing, Affect Studies, Trauma Writing, and Feminist Theory.’ — Julie Rodgers, Modern Language Review 115.3, July 2020, 734-35 (full text online)
  • ‘In this outstanding analysis on the representations of pain and suffering in contemporary French women's writing, Robson challenges the notion of empathy as a way of putting oneself in someone else's shoes, destabilizing at the same time the reader's fixed positions. In doing so, she invites us to rethink empathy as a possibility for creating alternative approaches and challenges our ways of approaching others' pain.’ — Didem Alkan, Women in French Studies 28, 2020, 149-150 (full text online)
  • ‘This fascinating book provides a thoughtful and incisive reflection on empathetic engagement in narratives of suffering in contemporary women’s writing in French. Kathryn Robson’s brilliant analysis assembles an impressive range of contemporary authors around a selection of themes that have been startlingly prominent in recent years — anorexia, child loss, and infanticide —, offering patient, nuanced, and original readings.’ — Amaleena Damlé, French Studies 74.3, July 2020, 489–490 (full text online)

The Cultural Legacy of María Zambrano
Edited by Xon de Ros and Daniela Omlor
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 24•3 April 2017

  • ‘Tal y como promete su tîtulo, este monográfico le ofrece al lector una visión de conjunto del legado cultural de María Zambrano. Un elenco multidisciplinar e internacional de colaboradores se reúnen en esta publicacíon para, gracias a la cuidadosa labor de selección y edición de Xon de Ros y Daniela Omlor, proporcionar una contextualización de la extensa producción zambraniana en relación a las principales corrientes del pensamiento occidental contemporáneo.’ — Beatriz Caballero Rodríguez, Revista de Hispanismo Filosófico 23, 2019, 226-28
  • ‘Pioneras en su contexto... Coronan el volumen una bibliografía y un índex, dando cuenta de la vigencia del pensamiento de María Zambrano en distintas ramas del saber como la filosofía, la poesía, las artes plásticas o la política.’ — Carmen María López López, Las Torres de Lucca 12, January-June 2018, 285-92
  • ‘An important contribution to Zambrano’s bibliography... focuses on Zambrano’s role as a cultural agent, looking at her impact in the following areas: avant-garde, feminism, psycho-analysis, literary comparativism, art criticism and semiotics, autobiographical writing, political theory, historical memory and exile.’ — Pilar Molina, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 70, 2018, 284 (full text online)
  • ‘Serious and sustained academic attention in the Anglophone world is in its infancy. The Cultural Legacy of María Zambrano takes on a pioneering role by being among the first book-length studies aimed at an English-speaking readership... A coherent and rigorous body of research, inviting the reader to reassess the impact of Zambrano’s legacy alongside her place in Western intellectual history.’ — Beatriz Caballero Rodríguez, Modern Language Review 115.1, 2020, 195-96 (full text online)

Secrets and Puzzles: Silence and the Unsaid in Contemporary Italian Writing
Nicoletta Simborowski
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2003

  • ‘Simborowski's book provides a novel, interpretative angle for some of the most studied authors of 20th century Italian literature, inviting a reading which overcomes the limitations of the said by engaging the reader in an operation of 'voicing the silence.' The book is clearly written and Simborowski's positions convincingly argued.’ — Nicoletta Di Ciolla McGowan, Forum Italicum 38/1, 2004, 267-9
  • ‘This book throws new light on a crucial period of Italian culture. In the analysis of silence and the unsaid it provides a key for interpretation, which works well (although not infallibly), and which highlights fundamental issues in Italian literature of the second half of the twentieth century.’ — Olivia Santovetti, Modern Language Review 100.3, 7 July 2005, 843-44 (full text online)
  • ‘Secrets and Puzzles foregrounds and consolidates an important interpretative issue, offering a new perspective on mainstream authors and a new critical context in which to view other writers of the post-war period. An impressive contribution to the study, at undergraduate level and beyond, of contemporary Italian literature.’ — Jennifer Burns, Italian Studies 60.1, 2005, 111-12

Balzac's Love Letters: Correspondence and the Literary Imagination
Ewa Szypula
Research Monographs in French Studies 52•19 December 2016

  • ‘Balzac the inveterate re-reader forces his own readers into their own, creative, re-readings of his texts. How fortunate, then, that so many of Balzac’s own letters, not least those to Mme Hanska, have been preserved for our own reading and re-reading, and are thus able to give rise to this subtle, sophisticated, original — and eminently readable — new study.’ — Owen Heathcote, H-France 17, November 2017
  • ‘On en saluera en n l’originalité, la nesse d’analyse, et l’attention subtile prêtée à l’écriture de Balzac, à ses tactiques comme à son tact, à sa volonté de maîtrise comme à sa délicatesse.’ — Thomas Conrad, Studi francesi 185, 2018, 335-36
  • ‘Szypula treats the letters as texts in their own right, arguing persuasively that they can be analysed in much the same way as we might read and interpret Balzac’s fiction... As Szypula argues compellingly, the themes of writing and rereading assume special importance in the 1844 novel Modeste Mignon, in which Balzac can be seen to reflect on the limitations of rereading, particularly when a letter-writer is insincere. The study concludes with an Afterword that examines Mme Han ska’s attempts at revising Balzac’s letters following his death, a process that shows — as Szypula does so refreshingly in this volume — that this correspondence has never truly closed, but instead remains intriguingly open to rereading and re-interpretation.’ — Andrew Watts, French Studies 72.4, October 2018, 610-11

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

Pascal Quignard: Towards the Vanishing Point
Léa Vuong
Research Monographs in French Studies 48•19 December 2016

  • ‘Léa Vuong’s succinct and insightful book addresses the work of French writer Pascal Quignard through the lenses of absence and disappearance. As Vuong argues, the reception of Quignard in the Anglo-Saxon world remains somewhat limited, while his work within the Hexagon has been the subject of extensive discussions and wide critical recognition. This first thorough study of Quignard’s work in the English language fills a gap while offering a perspective that connects Quignard to a constellation of structuralist and poststructuralist thinkers, in particular with the work of Jacques Lacan and Maurice Blanchot.’ — Étienne Lussier, Modern and Contemporary France 4 Oct 2017 (full text online)
  • ‘A well-written, well-documented analysis that manages to give a good glimpse into a voluminous literary production (Quignard’s publications are now nearing eighty books), while reporting on several important, and less studied, aspects of Quignard’s oeuvre.’ — Jean-Louis Pautrot, H-France 17, December 2017, no. 236
  • ‘Both specialists and those not very familiar with Quignard will find something of value here... the range of texts considered, which help the author trace broad points of commonality across an immense and still growing body of work, and the generally compelling characterization and descriptions of the text, will be helpful to those seeking an introduction to Quignard.’ — Joseph Acquito, Modern Language Review 113.3, July 2018, 664-66 (full text online)
  • ‘Di questo dibattito, l’autrice traccia nella «Conclusio- ne» un lucido bilancio, tra accuse di parisianisme e riconoscimento in patria, moltiplicarsi delle traduzioni e interesse ancora limitato da parte della critica in altre lingue, sottolineando la sotterranea portata sovversiva di una scrittura che ostenta la propria inattualità, che ritorce il fascino esercitato dal linguaggio contro il potere euristico della parola, che ingloba il meta-discorso che suscita, condannando talora il commentatore alla parafrasi o all’imitazione.’ — Stefano Genetti, Studi francesi 185, 2018, 367-68

Personal Effects: Reading the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff
Sonia Wilson
Research Monographs in French Studies 27•11 February 2010

  • ‘Wilson’s account is fascinating and throws light upon feminist controversy in late nineteenth-century England and the European continent.’ — unsigned review, The Year's Work in English Studies 91, 2012, 724