Elio Vittorini: The Writer and the Written
Guido Bonsaver
Italian Perspectives 4•1 November 2000

Origin and Identity: Essays on Svevo and Trieste
Elizabeth Schächter
Italian Perspectives 5•1 November 2000

The Printed Media in Fin-de-siècle Italy: Publishers, Writers, and Readers
Edited by Ann Hallamore Caesar, Gabriella Romani, and Jennifer Burns
Italian Perspectives 21•6 July 2011

  • ‘The portrayal of the fin-de-siècle offered by this volume is more articulate and dynamic than the one traditionally depicted... The compelling issues tackled in this volume, together with its thought-provoking approaches, cast a new light on some significant traits of fin-de-siècle Italy.’ — Morena Corradi, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 17.5, 2012, 650-652
  • ‘This collection cogently illustrates how the emerging study of material culture can illuminate fundamental discussions on the development of a national identity... Rather than focusing narrowly on authors and their literary production, these essays paint a vivid picture of the broader world in which these writers lived. In doing so, they show the development of national and cultural identification becoming inextricably linked to the rise of print media and the cultural industry as a whole.’ — Laura A. Salsini, Italica 2013, 304-05
  • ‘This excellent collection of essays (thirteen in all, five written in Italian, eight in English) focuses on the context in which printed media (books, magazines, news- papers, journals) were shaped and appeared at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The text as material object is privileged, while the approach is interdisciplinary. The end result is a different, and more complete, appreciation of the various texts considered here than would be afforded by an analysis confined to content or style.’ — Ursula A. Fanning, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 824-26 (full text online)

Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature: Modernist Embodiment in Italo Svevo, Federigo Tozzi and Carlo Emilio Gadda
Deborah Amberson
Italian Perspectives 22•30 January 2012

  • ‘In conclusion, this is a very interesting book, which not only brings together three exceptional authors, but also focuses on original and stimulating perspectives. The work makes a very valid critical contribution, by dealing with a fascinating topic in a manner which is original and insightful.’ — Giuseppe Stellardi, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 828-29 (full text online)

Disrupted Narratives: Illness, Silence and Identity in Svevo, Pressburger and Morandini
Emma Bond
Italian Perspectives 24•10 October 2012

Gadda and Beckett: Storytelling, Subjectivity and Fracture
Katrin Wehling-Giorgi
Italian Perspectives 29•1 November 2014

  • ‘Katrin Wehling-Giorgi’s comparative reading of the works of two giants of European literature is both enlightening and fascinating... The book is written in an elegant style and has the great merit of spelling out with admirable clarity the philosophical implications of Gadda’s and Beckett’s narrative projects.’ — Olivia Santovetti, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 225-27 (full text online)

Caravaggio in Film and Literature: Popular Culture's Appropriation of a Baroque Genius
Laura Rorato
Italian Perspectives 30•1 November 2014

Rome Eternal: The City As Fatherland
Guy Lanoue
Italian Perspectives 32•8 June 2015

The Somali Within: Language, Race and Belonging in ‘Minor’ Italian Literature
Simone Brioni
Italian Perspectives 33•11 September 2015

  • ‘A very welcome and significant contribution to the growing field of Italian postcolonial studies... offering a convincing in-depth textual analysis of a specifically postcolonial literature (though many of his insights could usefully also be stretched out to apply to the wider ‘migration’ field), as well as contributing an important linguistic study, which draws Translation Studies into productive proximity with a potential transcultural turn in Italian Studies in general.’ — Emma Bond, Modern Language Review 116.2, April 2017, 524-25 (full text online)
  • ‘inserisce pienamente all'interno degli studi postcoloniali che negli ultimi vent'anni hanno iniziato a interessare la critica letteraria italiana. Attraverso l'analisi di un corpus eterogeneo di testi, Brioni esamina il ruolo che nel grande quadro della letteratura nazionale italiana ha la letteratura italo-somala, cioè scritta in italiano da autori e autrici italiani che provengono dalla Somalia, o le cui origini familiari sono somale.’ — Serena Alessi, Incontri 31.2, 2016, 152-54
  • ‘A new and original analysis... From how the Somali writers describe race and colour it is, in fact, possible to start a reflection that, from the colonial adventures and through the racial laws of 1938 and the apparent neglect of the colonies after World War II, reaches contemporary Italy and the current problems with racism.’ — Daniele Comberiati, Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture 2016, 247-49
  • ‘The postcolonial and transnational perspective of this work... calls for fresh and stimulating elaborations, making it a com- pelling reading also for readers who are not well acquainted with the body of literature here analysed.’ — Lorenzo Mari, Interventions 2 September 2016 (full text online)
  • ‘Una delle questioni più rilevanti risulta essere sicuramente quello del colore della pelle: particolare importanza viene data da Brioni ai personaggi meticci presenti nei diversi romanzi presi in esame e che diventano sempre più numerosi nel corso delle successive pubblicazioni. Questi testimoniano la presenza di una problematica culturale che era rimasta relegata nella penombra della memoria storica del colonialismo italiano.’ — Michele Pandolfo, Between VI.11, May 2016
  • ‘The Somali Within is an innovative volume that discusses the Somali-Italian encounter, from the colonial period to the subsequent historical events intertwining the histories of Somalia and Italy well into their postcolonial present... Brioni’s volume is indeed a much needed and complex contribution to the study of Italian Somali literature which engages masterfully with these texts while redefining multiple theoretical problems.’ — Elena Benelli, Italian Studies Online, 3 October 2018 (full text online)
  • ‘Simone Brioni’s The Somali Within signals perhaps a new direction in the field of Italian migration literature in Italy... A valuable resource to scholars of Italian, minor, post-colonial, and migration literatures as well as those interested in how Italy’s colonial past can help explain contemporary views in Italy of language, race, and identity.’ — Francesca Minonne, Quaderni d'Italianistica 38.2, 2018, 277-79
  • ‘Rich in its theoretical approaches, Brioni’s study will be of immense interest to scholars of contemporary Italian culture, Italian postcolonialism and, indeed, to anyone interested in the ongoing debates surrounding ‘minor literature.’’ — Renata Redford, Italica 93.4, Winter 2016, 849-51

Laughter from Realism to Modernism: Misfits and Humorists in Pirandello, Svevo, Palazzeschi, and Gadda
Alberto Godioli
Italian Perspectives 34•9 October 2015

Pasolini after Dante: The 'Divine Mimesis' and the Politics of Representation
Emanuela Patti
Italian Perspectives 35•1 September 2016

Futurism: A Microhistory
Edited by Sascha Bru, Luca Somigli, and Bart Van den Bossche
Italian Perspectives 36•29 September 2017

  • ‘The chapter structure is cleverly designed to replicate a ‘day in the life’ of a Futurist ‘new man’, with chapters focusing on places both large and small from ‘The Skyscraper’ to ‘The Bed’... This book was a pleasure to read and will reward both the serious scholar of Futurism and the more casual reader of twentieth-century Italian culture who may wish to dip in and out of the Futurist day.’ — Selena Daly, Modern Language Review 114.3, July 2019, 577-579 (full text online)

Rome: Modernity, Postmodernity and Beyond
Edited by Lesley Caldwell and Fabio Camilletti
Italian Perspectives 39•30 September 2018

  • ‘As the seat of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, Mussolini’s Fascism, and Silvio Berlusconi’s neoliberalism, and as a site of immigration and social diversity, Rome is characterized by complexity... A valuable contribution to the scholarship of one of Europe’s most historically significant and cathected cities and will no doubt be of value to scholars of the Eternal City within both urban and Italian studies.’ — Damien Pollard, Modern Language Review 115.1, 2020, 190-91 (full text online)

A 'New' Woman in Verga and Pirandello: From Page to Stage
Enza De Francisci
Italian Perspectives 40•30 September 2018

  • ‘Effectively demonstrates that the two Sicilian writers, conventionally thought of as patriarchal figures, have, in their dramatic works, an affinity with the emerging ‘new woman’.’ — Mary Ann Frese Witt, Modern Language Review 115.2, 2020, 470-71 (full text online)

Italy and the USA: Cultural Change Through Language and Narrative
Edited by Guido Bonsaver, Alessandro Carlucci and Matthew Reza
Italian Perspectives 44•30 December 2019

  • ‘A very holistic assessment of cultural change, even going beyond the disciplinary points of reference of language and narrative to the larger fields of politics and economics.’ — Anna Chichi, Modern Language Review 117.2, 2022, 303-04 (full text online)

Psychoanalysis, Ideology and Commitment in Italy 1945-1975: Edoardo Sanguineti, Ottiero Ottieri, Andrea Zanzotto
Alessandra Diazzi
Italian Perspectives 51•13 September 2022

  • ‘Through her three case studies Diazzi has successfully demonstrated how psychoanalysis penetrated literature and culture in post-war Italy. As she confirms: “The assimilation of psychoanalysis into literature actively contributed to this rewriting of the discipline”.’ — 606-08, Annali d'Italianistica 2023, 41, Katja Liimatta

Rome, 16 October 1943: History, Memory, Literature
Mara Josi 
Italian Perspectives 60•8 August 2023

A Taste for the Negative: Beckett and Nihilism
Shane Weller
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2005

Women in Russian Literature after Glasnost: Female Alternatives
Carol Adlam
Legenda (General Series) •13 September 2005

  • ‘An engaging look at some of the most influential figures in post-Soviet writing.’ — Benjamin Sutcliffe, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 307-08 (full text online)

Anglo-German Interactions in the Literature of the 1890s
Patrick Bridgwater
Legenda (General Series) •1 August 1999

  • ‘The author is to be congratulated for shedding new light on a wide range of Anglo-German cross-currents... His study weaves a multi-faceted web of historical and inter-personal connections, and is at its best when it forges links between the approaches of different authors and diverse forms of art.’ — Susanne Stark, Modern Language Review 97.2, 2002, 523-4 (full text online)
  • ‘This well-documented volume provides new insights into the key social and cultural issues of the 1890s, including the truth and morality of artistic writing.’ — Crocker and Womack, The Year's Work in English Studies 2000, 532

Assuming the Light: The Parisian Literary Apprenticeship of Miguel Angel Asturias
Stephen Henighan
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 1999

  • ‘The combination of close textual analysis of Asturias's own work, both fictional and journalistic, with that of other discourses, including the work of his contemporaries as well as his critics, is, in my view, one of the many strengths of Assuming the Light. Frequently provocative and meticulously researched, this book will be of interest therefore not only to Asturias specialists but also more generally to scholars engaged in Latin American cultural studies, particularly those interested in questions of cultural identity.’ — Claire Lindsay, Modern Language Review 97.3, 2002, 742-3 (full text online)
  • ‘Lucid, sophisticated, beautifully written, it provides a valuable and thought-provoking introduction to the writer's extraordinary sojourn in Paris... Stephen Henighan seems destined to make an outstanding contribution to Asturias studies.’ — Gerald Martin, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 79, 2002
  • ‘Valuable, problematic insights for those conversant with Asturias's work and its criticism.’ — Paul Jordan, Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXIX, 2002, 826-8

Bakhtin between East and West: Cross-Cultural Transmission
Karine Zbinden
Legenda (General Series) •7 December 2006

  • ‘Zbinden exhibits considerable theoretical insight and a capacity for nuanced analysis throughout the work.’ — R. Coates, Slavonic and East European Review 87.2, 2009, 344-46 (full text online)
  • ‘Exceptional new work being produced on the Russian polymath, some of the most interesting of which was coming out of the University of Sheffield, whose Bakhtin Centre supports the work of an outstanding group of language theorists... Karine Zbinden and Alastair Renfrew are two of the excellent younger scholars from the Bakhtin Centre.’ — Michael Bernard-Donals, Slavic Review 68.1, Spring 2009, 193-95

Baudelaire: Individualism, Dandyism and the Philosophy of History
Bernard Howells
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 1996

  • ‘This is Baudelaire as iceberg, in Claude Pichois's term, the writer whose reading lurks like a huge submerged mass... Baudelaireans will be pleased to have these essays in so convenient a form, and graduate students focusing on the nineteenth century will find them both challenging and informing.’ — Rosemary Lloyd, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 30.3-4, 2002, 417-19
  • ‘Le lecteur estimera surtout dans l'oeurage de Howells la richesse et la subtilité de parallèles, surtout avec Emerson et Carlyle, fondés sur des relations de fait et la mise en situation et en perspective de textes de Baudelaire qu'une critique fran°aise parfois étroitement nationale a pu appréhender de manière trop isolée.’ — Claude de Grève, Revue de littérature comparée 3, 1997, 391-3
  • ‘The great advantage of Howells's unflappable approach to Baudelaire's flower-pot philosophising is its corrosive effect on commonplaces of Baudelaire criticism... A valuable contribution to the art of defining a poet's philosophy.’ — Graham Robb, Times Literary Supplement 24 January, 1997
  • ‘Howells has undertaken an admirable close re-reading of Baudelaire's work by paying attention to its allusive intellectual density and to the contexts into which it should be placed.’ — Dudley M. Marchi, Comparatist 22, 1998, 208-9

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

Britain and Italy from Romanticism to Modernism: A Festschrift for Peter Brand
Edited by Martin McLaughlin
Legenda (General Series) •1 November 2000

  • ‘The book concludes with a useful bibliography of Peter Brand's work and offers a valuable résumé of work in the field since Brand's pioneering study.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies xxxix/1, 2003, 91
  • ‘This rich and varied collection of essays... a worthy homage to Peter Brand.’ — Carmine G. di Biase, Italica 79.4, 2002, 568-72
  • ‘A volume that, with its interlacing strands, very effectively offers a picture of the complex relationship between two cultures reciprocally illuminating each other in often unpredictable ways.’ — Laura Lepschy, Modern Language Review 98.2, 2003, 482-3 (full text online)
  • ‘Une présentation très claire, dans laquelle toutefois le titre peut paraïtre trompeur, car il resterait à explorer, pendant cette même période, ce qu'apporte précisément cet autre aspect de la culture moderne italienne qu'est par exemple sa production romanesque. On songe à Manzoni (1785-1873) dont l'èuvre reflète à bien des égards le passage du Romantisme au Modernisme.’ — Annie Dubernard Laurent, Revue de littérature comparée 3, 2002, 381-3

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

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

Conceptions of the Absurd: From Surrealism to Chestov's and Fondane's Existential Thought
Ramona Fotiade
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2001

  • ‘Fotiade argues persuasively that the ideas of Chestov and Fondane form the basis of a tradition of dissident thought in the 1920s and beyond... an original and illuminating contribution to French intellectual history, a clearly organized and closely argued exploration of a neglected field.’ — Douglas Smith, French Studies LVII.3, 2003, 414-15

Desiring the Dead: Necrophilia and Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Lisa Downing
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2003

  • ‘Downing is working outside the scope of any simple discourse of pathology, and perhaps outside the queer undoing of pathology as such. ...this is an impressive first book, striking without being facile, theoretically complex without being unruly, and attentive to literary qualities in the chosen texts while sustaining its thematic argument.’ — Peter Cryle, Modern Language Review 100.2, 2005, 505-6 (full text online)
  • ‘This is a successful, richly structured, and thought-provoking exploration of 'the cultural fantasy of necrophilia'.’ — Carol Rifelj, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 33, n. 1 and 2, Fall-Winter 2004-2005
  • ‘Downing's approach throughout is essentially post-Faucauldian and psychoanalitic. Her style, at once sober and engaging, is a model for academic prose in general. ... The work also indicates a new direction for death studies, and despite its omissions deserves consideration in this regard.’ — Jason Hartford, The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association Spring 2004, 119-21

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

Liberty, Equality, Maternity
Alison Fell
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2003

  • ‘A highly readable, well-informed, and clearly argued study of the discourses of motherhood in twentieth-century France.’ — Catherine Rodgers, Modern Language Review 99.4, 2004, 1059-60 (full text online)
  • ‘Ce livre consciencieux met en valeur l'humanité des trois écrivaines étudiées plutôt qu'une quelconque rigidité. Somme tout, c'est leur histoire personnelle que Fell explore, avec tout ce que cela supposes de contradictions, d'ambiguïtés, de tiraillements entre théorie et vécu.’ — Catherine Slawy-Sutton, French Review 79.2, 2006, 420-21

Modernist Song: The Poetry of Tristan Tzara
Stephen Forcer
Legenda (General Series) •17 January 2006

  • ‘Writing with evident pleasure, Forcer starts from an accessible premiss to go on to explore exciting new ground, teasing out a surprising array of readings and styles... Indeed, as Forcer demonstrates that Tzara’s poetry is a rich and diverse body of work in which classic avant-garde tropes feature alongside more established poetic practices and vocabulary, he clearly exposes both the critical inadequacy of Tzara's epithet as the "Father of Dada" and, on a more general level, the need for a much more inclusive historiography of avant-garde creativity. All of which makes this powerfully argued book a most welcome and valuable publication.’ — Jo Langley, Modern Language Review 104.2, April 2009, 575-76 (full text online)
  • ‘Stephen Forcer's book impresses in that it does not use the myth [of Dada] as a ready-made prop with which to proclaim its subject's importance... What distinguishes Modernist Song, above all, is Forcer's sustained and precise analysis of selected poems, his own interrogations of signifying play, which draw on a range of theoretical tools and critical references.’ — Ruth Hemus, French Studies 492-93

Naturalism Redressed: Identity and Clothing in the Novels of Emile Zola
Hannah Thompson
Legenda (General Series) •1 April 2004

  • ‘A cogently presented argument with carefully selected textual support... Hannah Thompson's thought-provoking monograph is an example of the richness of the new approaches to which the Zolian oeuvre lends itself.’ — Barbara M. Stone, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 27.1, 2006, 50-51
  • ‘Thompson's well-documented and convincing analyses make an important contribution to the ongoing demystification of Zola as a "Naturalist" novelist as well as to a critical re-examination of the implications of Naturalism in and for the novel... An entertaining and worthwhile read for anyone interested in Zola studies, Naturalism, or cultural history.’ — Laurey Martin-Berg, French Review 80.4, 2007, 918-19
  • ‘This book is valuable for its detailed analysis of the significance of clothing in Zola, and even more so for its challenging insights about naturalism as textual practice.’ — Larry Duffy, Modern Language Review 101.4, October 2006, 1132-33 (full text online)
  • ‘Thompson's study rightly highlights the transgressive nature of power and desire present in many of the novels and offers sustained and convincing readings, further enriching our continuing awareness of the multilayered character of the naturalist text, which Zola himself sought to portray in his theoretical writings as scientific and unproblematic.’ — Sarah Capitanio, French Studies 60.4, 2006, 529-30
  • ‘Naturalism Redressed provides a refreshing perspective for Zola studies, and will therefore interest any scholar seeking to deepen his or her understanding of a wide variety of topics in Zola’s novels ranging from feminist issues, the body, sexuality, and the role of material culture in this author’s oeuvre.’ — Kathryn A. Haklin, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 42.3-4, Summer 2014

Paul Valéry and the Voice of Desire
Kirsteen Anderson
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2000

  • ‘Anderson is right. The question of voice goes to the heart of Valéry's relationship with writing... One can learn a great deal from Anderson about this elusive figure of French letters, thanks, above all, to the careful attention she gives to the multiple voices of Valéry she invites us to hear.’ — Suzanne Guerlac, French Studies LVI.2, 2002, 260
  • ‘This accessible study will act as a bridge into the universe of one of the most original and understudied thinker-poets of the twentieth century.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies xxxix/1, 2003, 87

Processes of Literary Creation: Flaubert and Proust
Marion Schmid
Legenda (General Series) •1 May 1998

  • ‘This is an excellent, scholarly analysis with insights both for the specialist and the non-genetic scholar.’ — notice, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 60, 1998, 164
  • ‘A penetrating and valuable contribution to genetic scholarship.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 37.1, 2001, 110-11
  • ‘Represents a formidable amount of research... a very substantial and fruitful study on all counts.’ — Nola M. Leov, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 22.1, 2001, 29
  • ‘A painstaking and perceptive account... Schmid defends genetic criticism against Bourdieu's charge that it marks a return to the positivism of traditional literary historiography. Her own application of genetic theories of composition is measured and nuanced, and throws up many insights.’ — Edward J. Hughes, Modern Language Review 95.3, 2000, 843-4 (full text online)
  • ‘Intriguingly, Proust had placed medical prescriptions centre-stage in one of the drafts for the opening line of the novel... Nuggets such as this feature in Schmids study, in which she meticulously explains genetic criticism, before uncovering two contrasting compositional styles.’ — Edward Hughes, Times Literary Supplement 21 May, 1999, 8
  • ‘As well as containing detailed analysis of two radically opposed writing practices, the work is especially valuable in setting out the main issues in genetic studies.’ — Larry Duffy, French Studies LIV.2, 2000, 233-4
  • ‘Schmid's analysis sheds new light on the organizational intricacies of these canonical texts, which may encourage even scholars of Flaubert and Proust to reread, in hopes of appreciating the subtle patterns she uncovers.’ — Hollie Markland Harder, French Review 77.5, April 2004, 990-1

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

The Artificial Self: The Psychology of Hippolyte Taine
Hilary Nias
Legenda (General Series) •1 October 1999

  • ‘Given the relative dearth of serious work on the writers who formed the philosophical backbone to nineteenth-century literary France, a study of any one of them is welcome, a study of this quality of scholarship, insight and precision a real feast.’ — David C. J. Lee, Modern Language Review 96.3, 2001, 830-1 (full text online)
  • ‘This authoritative study of Taine's indirectness and inconclusiveness will be an indispensable foundation.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 37.3, 2001, 347
  • ‘A probing and stimulating contribution to Tainian studies.’ — Thomas H. Goetz, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 29.3-4, 2001, 370-1

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

The Sentinel: An Incomplete Early Novel by Rebecca West
Edited by Kathryn Laing
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2002

  • ‘It is the least surprising thing in the world that Rebecca West should have begun a novel when she was 17, and that parts of it should be very good. She was only 18, after all, when her stinging reviews first appeared in The Freewoman and The Clarion, and caused sleepy Fabian giants to sit up and take notice of this fiercely intelligent Edinburgh schoolgirl juggling axes in the air... Richly rewarding.’ — Claudia FitzHerbert, Daily Telegraph 1 February, 2003, 5
  • ‘Quite a coup... West's urgent descriptions of events and characterisations of key figures, from politicians to the Pankhursts, can hardly be bettered. But this is more of a social history than it might first appear, thanks to the journalistic observations woven into her storytelling. Her description of the Daily Mail as 'the encyclopaedia of vulgarity' retains a certain resonance today.’ — Harriet Griffey, Financial Times 22 February, 2003, 4
  • ‘An astonishing piece of juvenilia... It is easy to recognise the real women who belonged to the militant Women's Social and Political Union: Mary Gawthorpe, Emily Davidson, Dora Marsden, Emmeline Pankhurst. The rise of the New Woman writing of the 1890s and suffragette fiction of the early twentieth century challenged strict definitions of feminine experience only to replace them with equally rigid rules governing women's social and political roles. West questions such demarcations. Her women long for motherhood and some of the most important suffragists are men. The novel's message is that love is not only more important than political power, it is the source of such power in the modern world and the modern novel.’ — Rosalind Porter, Times Literary Supplement 28 February, 2003, 24
  • ‘Here is an emerging and well-read mind confronting public and private matters... Laing's scholarly introduction is a rich tool for reading this novel. Though unsophisticated and fragmentary as a novel, The Sentinel is nevertheless a richly worked resource; a readable and fascinating historical document that brings much of the time and its author to life.’ — Antonia Byatt, Times Higher Education Supplement 18 April, 2003, 28
  • ‘Not only the publication of The Sentinel, but the way it has been published, may represent a tidal change in the way its author's work is now received... Fascinating to readers interested in the development of West as a woman, because it is obsessively concerned not only with feminist politics but with sexuality, and with the compelling beauty of certain girls and women, pored over in erotic detail... The most striking passages, which foreshadow the vivid reportage of her maturity, are the accounts of suffragette marches, protests and riots... Carries in it the seeds of almost everything that was to preoocupy West throughout her writing life. Laing's treatment of The Sentinel may complete the transition of her fiction, and of her work as a whole, out of the overcrowded 20th-century mainstream and into the canon.’ — Victoria Glendinning, The Guardian 20 December, 2003, G2

Towards a New Material Aesthetics: Bakhtin, Genre and the Fates of Literary Theory
Alastair Renfrew
Legenda (General Series) •7 December 2006

  • ‘Alastair Renfrew's book offers an intricate and critical reading of what he sees as the decisive moment of origin of European literary theory in order then to fashion from that reading a (post-)theoretical position for our own time.’ — Graham Pechey, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1184-85 (full text online)
  • ‘Genre becomes in Renfrew's treatment of it a useful map for guidance along some of the more intriguing twists and turns in the Bakhtin canon... An important addition to the growing library of Bakhtiniana.’ — Michael Holquist, Slavonic and East European Review 87.1, 2009, 114-15 (full text online)
  • ‘Exceptional new work being produced on the Russian polymath, some of the most interesting of which was coming out of the University of Sheffield, whose Bakhtin Centre supports the work of an outstanding group of language theorists... Karine Zbinden and Alastair Renfrew are two of the excellent younger scholars from the Bakhtin Centre.’ — Michael Bernard-Donals, Slavic Review 68.1, Spring 2009, 193-95

Victor Hugo, romancier de l'abîme: New Studies on Hugo's Novels
Edited by J. A. Hiddleston
Legenda (General Series) •1 May 2002

  • ‘This is a fascinating collection, revealing complexities and shifting sands in place of the stark dichotomies once associated with Hugo's novels... clearly demonstrates a rich seam of interest for the twenty-first-century reader. A thought-provoking volume indeed!’ — Monica Nurnberg, Modern Language Review 99.1, 2004, 204-5 (full text online)

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

Théophile Gautier, Orator to the Artists: Art Journalism of the Second Republic
James Kearns
Legenda (General Series) •14 November 2007

  • ‘In this first ever study of all of Théophile Gautier’s art criticism produced during the Second Republic, James Kearns brings us a much-needed reassessment of the art critic’s role in the history of French art... this is a highly accomplished study, which should be essential reading both for the scholar researching the Salon during this period and for the Gautier specialist. The material is well structured and the writing style engaging, making it equally accessible to the student or more seasoned researcher.’ — Catherine Hewitt, French Studies 64.2, April 2010
  • ‘This highly informed and informative study exposes a breadth of sources that should serve to prompt new enquiries in Gautier scholarship... Analyses [in this book] suggest the role this fine study may play in releasing Gautier’s art journalism ‘from the simplistic art-for-art’s-sake commonplaces to which it has been for so long reduced’ and in reasserting Gautier’s importance in the visual culture of nineteenth-century France.’ — Greg Kerr, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 567-68 (full text online)
  • ‘Focusing on the period of the Second Republic which spans the 1848 Revolution and the 1851 coup d’état, this meticulously researched and engaging study follows Gautier’s reactions to developments in the organisation of the salon and to the artists themselves through a series of 49 articles published in La Presse... Gautier emerges in Kearns’s study not only as a prolific and idiosyncratic critic but also as one who challenges the label of 'art for art’s sake', embracing an overtly Republican artistic agenda.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.2, 2010, 247

Rilke's Poetics of Becoming
Ben Hutchinson
Legenda (General Series) •5 September 2006

  • ‘Eine sorgfältige und konzentrierte Analyse der Dichtungen des jungen Rilke... Die sehr gut lesbare und Beachtung verdienende Studie von Ben Hutchinson hat hier einen bemerkenswerten Schritt auf dem Weg zu einem umfassenden Rilke-Verständnis getan.’ — Sascha Löwenstein, IASLonline online
  • ‘Overall this is a well-written book, offering both a coherent original thesis and perceptive analyses of individual poems.’ — Helen Bridge, Modern Language Review 103.1, January 2008, 282-83 (full text online)
  • ‘A judicious study of impressive scope.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.4, 2011, 480

The Burgtheater and Austrian Identity: Theatre and Cultural Politics in Vienna, 1918-38
Robert Pyrah
Legenda (General Series) •5 July 2007

  • ‘This excellent volume provides an invaluable extra dimension to previous publications on Austrian theatre between the wars through the rigorous use of archival material, reinforcing and enhancingwork based mainly on texts, reports, and reviews in the Viennese press and journals. This is a work which will be important not only to literary historians, particularly of the theatre, but also to political historians, demonstrating as it does how the history of that troubled period in Austria directly affected the theatre.’ — John Warren, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1164-65 (full text online)
  • ‘A significant and welcome contribution to the slowly expanding body of work examining the interface of culture and politics in the First Austrian Republic... Original and well-researched.’ — Forum for Modern Language Studies 231)

Proust and Joyce in Dialogue
Sarah Tribout-Joseph
Legenda (General Series) •25 July 2008

Men of their Words: The Poetics of Masculinity in George Sand's Fiction
Nigel Harkness
Legenda (General Series) •24 August 2007

  • ‘This meticulously researched study makes a compelling argument to renegotiate the importance of masculinity in Sand's writing... His persuasive conclusions will therefore be of interest not only to scholars working on nineteenth-century France, but indeed to the wider fields of gender studies and literary criticism.’ — Forum for Modern Language Studies April 2009, 224)
  • ‘Nigel Harkness's aim in this excellent monograph is to liberate George Sand's masculinity from the restrictive autobiographical sphere of cross dressing and male pseudonymity and to situate it rather as the driving force of her literary texts. Drawing on a corpus of fifteen novels, he produces a series of authoritative close readings that demonstrate the extent to which the thinking of masculinity, and its inscription in literary representation, are inextricable for Sand.’ — Diana Knight, French Studies 64.2, April 2010
  • ‘Harkness's focused tracking of Sand's performances of poetic masculinity throughout this book undoubtedly furthers critical understanding of the highly complex and multiple narrative positions adopted in her fiction, especially its meta-discursive dimensions. His sensitive and often provocative close readings of Sand's works, especially Indiana and Lélia (in chapters 2 and 5), will inspire fresh appraisals of established Sand criticism.’ — Mary Orr, Modern and Contemporary France 17.3, August 2009

Sex in Imagined Spaces: Gender and Utopia from More to Bloch
Caitríona Ní Dhúill
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2010

  • ‘Ni Dhúill's study shines a bright light on the hitherto neglected importance of sex and gender questions in utopian societies. Sex In Imagined Spaces is a cogently argued, beautifully written, and highly original contribution to knowledge in utopia studies and beyond; it not only mobilizes important wider cultural developments for the analysis of literary texts, but also gives a brilliant gender-theoretical spin to the double function of utopian texts as vision and critique.’ — Anna Katharina Schaffner, Germanistik in Ireland 7 (2013), 228-30
  • ‘This excellent monograph tackles the concept of utopia by repositioning it within the fields of literature and creative practice examined through the lens of the gendered body.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2 (2013)
  • ‘This is an excellent book which deals with the relationship between utopian desire, gender relations, and social outcome in a nuanced and intelligent way.’ — Peter Thompson, Modern Language Review 108.3, 2013, 948-49 (full text online)

Poetry and the Realm of the Public Intellectual: The Alternative Destinies of Gabriela Mistral, Cecília Meireles, and Rosario Castellanos
Karen Peña
Legenda (General Series) •14 December 2007

  • ‘By bringing together three of the principal Latin-American authors of the twentieth century, Poetry and the Realm of the Public Intellectual contributes enormously to our understanding of what inspired and motivated them as authors. Peña proves to have a very thorough understanding of poetry, providing a painstakingly close readings of the three poets analysed. She also demonstrates a great deal of familiarity with both Spanish and Portuguese bibliographical sources in her studies of each of the writers... A valuable contribution to the field of Latin-American poetry, especially in its discussion of the question of gender and the place of female intellectuals in Latin America.’ — Vivaldo Santos, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 87.7, 2010, 1020-21
  • ‘Resumiendo, se trata de una contribución valiosa e importante sobre la conflictividad americana mediada por las voces femeninas. Por encima de todo, Peña nos muestra que la poesía es más vital y resonante en sus momentos de rebeldía.’ — Roland Spiller, Iberoamericana 43, 2011, 200-01

Literary Scholarship in Late Imperial Russia: Rituals of Academic Institutionalization
Andy Byford
Legenda (General Series) •14 November 2007

  • ‘A thoroughly researched, thoughtfully conceptualized, and highly informative book that will hopefully lead to further interest in the remarkable yet in many cases still underrecognized scholarship that emerged just before and after the turn of the twentieth century.’ — Barry P. Scherr, Russian Review 67.3, July 2008, 500-01
  • ‘This elegantly written account of the development of Russian literary scholarship is distinctive for its focus on academics and university professors (kabinetnye uchenye) rather than the more familiar, civic-minded criticism associated with the names of Chernyshevskii or Belinskii... it affords a number of extremely valuable insights that are highly pertinent for the student of Russian intellectual culture more broadly.’ — Frances Nethercott, Revolutionary Russia 22.1, 2009, 97-99
  • ‘Byford’s monograph makes two extremely important systemic contributions. First, it is part of a process of reassessment of the Russian nineteenth century, whereby cultural historians attempt to step out of the teleological shadow cast by the gargantuan events of the early twentieth century, and indeed, to redress the methodological blindspots that grew from the Soviet era; second, Byford also joins those few (in the UK, largely Bakhtin Circle-oriented Russianists) who strive to contextualize the insights of early twentieth-century Russian literary theorists.’ — Carol Adlam, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 620-21 (full text online)
  • ‘Ces quelques remarques n'enlèvent rien à la qualité de cet ouvrage, le premier à aborder les études littéraires en Russie sous l'angle des processus d'institutionnalisation et qui, à ce titre, constitue une étude véritablement pionnière.’ — Catherine Depretto, Cahiers du Monde Russe 2010, 794-96