Published November 1997
Breeches and Metaphysics: Thackeray's German Discourse
S. S. Prawer
Studies In Comparative Literature 1
- ‘What Thackeray did not publish Professor Prawer has done for him in this welcome addition to the Thackeray literature.’ — unsigned notice, Times Literary Supplement 1997
- ‘It is good to have a book of this kind that so thoroughly covers its subject. I have the distinct impression that Prawer has really hunted down and rounded up every last German reference there is in Thackeray and I am glad he has done it.’ — John R. Reed, Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography 11.4, 2000, 326-7
- ‘Prawer's comprehensive analysis is thoroughly researched and convincing throughout. One of the strongest features of his monograph is the skilful mastery with which the author examines the interaction between the different discourses depicted above, as well as their function in Thackeray's oeuvre as a whole. An essential study for scholars in the field of Anglo-German literary relations and the wider domain of cultural transmission.’ — Susanne Stark, Modern Language Review 96.1, 2001, 298-9 (full text online)
Published July 1999
Aeneas Takes the Metro: The Presence of Virgil in Twentieth-Century French Literature
Fiona Cox
Studies In Comparative Literature 3
- unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 37.3, 2001, 341
- ‘Affirms that Virgil's 'flexibility and openness to reception' has ensured his continuing relevance for writers of widely differing persuasions.’ — Julian Cowley, The Year's Work in English Studies 80, 2002, 615
- ‘The fine chapters on Pierre Klossowski's controversial Aeneid translation and on the nouveau roman constitute in their grouping a genuine contribution to our understanding of Virgil's postwar reception... the coherence of traditional heroic and imperialistic readings gives way to a postmodern view of Aeneas as exile.’ — Theodore Ziolkowski, French Studies LV.2, 2001, 269-70
- ‘Wide-ranging and illuminating... In sum, Aeneas Takes The Metro illustrates, if proof were needed, the ability of a well-informed and scholarly comparative study to transcend linguistic, formal and temporal barriers successfully and productively.’ — Kiera Vaclavik, New Comparison 31, 2002, 202-3
Published June 2000
Metaphor and Materiality: German Literature and the World-View of Science 1780-1955
Peter D. Smith
Studies In Comparative Literature 4
- ‘Smith is able to show convincingly how ambivalence about the role of science or scientific tendencies permeates these literary works, and he offers interesting insights into the sometimes subtle thematization of scientific ideas in literature.’ — Elizabeth Neswald, British Journal for the History of Science 35, 2002, 363-4
- ‘Smith's mastery of both primary and secondary sources is remarkable, and his bibliographies provide a useful guide to the (often vast) secondary literature... Demonstrates the extraordinary richness and importance of the vein of research into which Smith has tapped, and puts much other work in so-called Cultural Studies to shame.’ — Paul Bishop, Modern Language Review 97.2, 2002, 505-7 (full text online)
- ‘In this thorough study of the exchange between science and literature, Peter D. Smith skillfully argues that the idea of these Two Cultures existing in isolation from one another is overly simplistic... An excellent contribution to the vital research currently examining the interdisciplinary nature of scientific and literary works.’ — Heather I. Sullivan, Monatshefte 94.4, 2002, 541-2
Published November 2000
Marguerite Yourcenar: Reading the Visual
Nigel Saint
Studies In Comparative Literature 5
- ‘Scholarly and lucidly written, Saint's study will appeal both to the specialist and to readers with a broader interest in word and image research.’ — Jean H. Duffy, French Studies LVI.3, 2002, 430
- unsigned notice, Société Internationale d'Etudes Yourcenariennes 21, 2000, 8
Published September 2005
The Anatomy of Laughter
Edited by Toby Garfitt, Edith McMorran and Jane Taylor
Studies In Comparative Literature 8
- ‘An accessible and educative collection... provides much more than a visitation of standard methodologies, and it does much more than merely celebrate laughter as cognitive, linguistic, or aesthetic function. An indispensable collection for the serious humour scholar.’ — Tarez Samra Graban, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature December 2010, 428-31
Published May 2006
Dilettantism and its Values: From Weimar Classicism to the fin de siècle
Richard Hibbitt
Studies In Comparative Literature 9
- ‘This study explores, with great erudition, the hitherto unknown faces of the dilettante, revealing an intriguing complexity. Hibbitt succeeds in showing how this "empty figure" can, thanks to his openness, mirror the concerns of different times and cultures.’ — Forum for Modern Language Studies 224)
The Fantastic in France and Russia in the Nineteenth Century: In Pursuit of Hesitation
Claire Whitehead
Studies In Comparative Literature 10
- ‘This recent volume from the Legenda imprint maintains the high standards of production and academic excellence in the field of comparative literature that readers have come to expect from the marque.’ — Leon Burnett, Slavonic and East European Review 86.4, 2008, 707-09 (full text online)
- ‘Most of all benefits through its comparative analyses of chosen texts; this not only makes obvious the "pan-European" context in which the fantastic flourished during the nineteenth century but will, it is to be hoped, inspire others to tinker further with some of the concepts applied here to the fantastic, especially in relation to other examples of Gothic fiction.’ — Slobodan Sugur, Modern Language Review 104.3, 2009, 824-25 (full text online)
- ‘This is a very readable work, which constitutes a valuable complement to Todorov's 1970 "Introduction à la littérature fantastique."’ — Forum for Modern Language Studies 235)
- ‘Essential reading for scholars of the fantastic; I also recommend it to instructors, who can use Whitehead's readings of these classic texts to astound their students by revealing the way that language works to produce the thrills of the genre.’ — Lynn Patyk, Russian Review 68.1, May 2009, 129-30
Published July 2007
Wanderers Across Language: Exile in Irish and Polish Literature of the Twentieth Century
Kinga Olszewska
Studies In Comparative Literature 12
- ‘This book is perhaps most interesting in the account given of key Polish journals such as Kultura, and the contexts in which specific debates took place; and in the translations of Polish texts that underpin the argument.’ — Fiona Becket, Modern Language Review 104.2, April 2009, 540-41 (full text online)
Published December 2008
Henry James and the Second Empire
Angus Wrenn
Studies In Comparative Literature 14
- ‘The first sustained account of what are now regarded, fairly, as lesser writers of the Second Empire... and of their significance for James’s developing art. Wrenn offers an excellent analysis of the house journal for these writers, the Revue des deux mondes, a publication enthusiastically read by James.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.1, January 2011
Published April 2010
Turning into Sterne: Viktor Shklovskii and Literary Reception
Emily Finer
Studies In Comparative Literature 18
- ‘In [Finer's] own inventive readings, the impact of Sterne and English eighteenth-century narrative experiments is dominant in Shklovskii’s journalism and fiction of the mid 1920s. The overt play with convention evident in his non- fiction, as in his novels, exemplifies in a double sense the khod konia — both the knight’s move of artistic indirection and the hobby horse of Shandean digressions.’ — Dale E. Peterson, Slavonic and East European Review 89.4, October 2011, 720-21 (full text online)
- ‘Emily Finer’s first monograph represents a significant advance on any other coverage of Viktor Shklovskii (1893–1984) and his work in literature to date... An outstanding study for those interested in early twentieth-century Soviet culture, comparative literature and literary reception, close readings of English literature in Russian translation, and the publication and dissemination of English literature in Russia and the Soviet Union.’ — Rosemari Baker, Slavonica 17.1, April 2011, 54-55
Published February 2011
Borges and Joyce: An Infinite Conversation
Patricia Novillo-Corvalán
Studies In Comparative Literature 24
- ‘Deftly employs cultural, geographical, biographical, linguistic and literary analysis; in doing so, it provides readers with a better understanding of Joyce, Borges, and the connections between them.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 49.2 (2013)
- ‘...The engaging central thesis, of the surprisingly fruitful interaction between these two seemingly dissimilar authors.’ — Ben Bolig, Modern Language Review 108.3, 2013, 983-85 (full text online)
- ‘This is an ambitious and satisfying book that illuminates, through the prism of Borges, the work of Joyce and, through Joyce, the work of Borges... It is a very welcome and important addition to our libraries.’ — Lucia Boldrini, James Joyce Quarterly 49.3/4, May 2014, 689-92
Published May 2011
The Art of Comparison: How Novels and Critics Compare
Catherine Brown
Studies In Comparative Literature 23
- ‘Brown's core chapters gracefully use varied conceptual tools and interdisciplinary viewpoints, all of which are engagingly woven into an organic whole, so that the reader emerges from this ambitious enterprise appreciating what notable work can be done when translation theory and practice are not seen as separate entities but as intercommunicative.’ — Andrew Radford, Translation and Literature 20, 2011, 403-08
- ‘Dexterously connects Eliot, Tolstoy and Lawrence to the considerations of nationalism and supranationalism at the heart of critical debates within and about comparative literary scholarship... Convincingly demonstrates that we as literary critics should open our ears and our minds to unlikely literary conversations, as well as the fresh knowledge and pleasure we may glean from them.’ — Katherine Anderson, George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies 62-63 (September 2012), 124-26
Published May 2013
The Realist Author and Sympathetic Imagination
Sotirios Paraschas
Studies In Comparative Literature 28
- ‘The arguments are based throughout on meticulous research, close attention to textual detail, and an adroit engagement with literary theory. They are also conveyed with notable elegance and clarity. Paraschas is not afraid to contest claims made by such influential theorists as Paul de Man, whose view of realism as a regression from the ironic novel of the eighteenth century is here neatly reversed. Undergraduates would find his admirably succinct introductory discussion of the ‘realist author’ a source of elucidation and stimulus.’ — Michael Tilby, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 405-06
- ‘In arguing for a more nuanced understanding of the realist mode, Paraschas has written an important contribution to nineteenth-century French studies, and a book that will serve as an invaluable reference for students and scholars alike.’ — Andrew Watts, Modern Language Review 110.2, April 2015, 516-17 (full text online)
- ‘Extremely useful for understanding the attitude of early nineteenth-century Realists and their attempts to present verisimilitude as art.’ — Catherine Winters, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 43.3-4, 2015
Published September 2013
Iris Murdoch and Elias Canetti: Intellectual Allies
Elaine Morley
Studies In Comparative Literature 29
- ‘As Elaine Morley aptly observes in her exciting and innovative book, the majority of publications foreground personality and relationship issues but allow little room for discussion of the creative affinity between the two authors... The much-needed shift of focus from the personal to the literary and philosophical in Morley’s analysis of Murdoch and Canetti as intellectual allies is path-breaking.’ — Dagmar C. G. Lorenz, Modern Language Review 109.4, October 2014, 1142-43 (full text online)
Published July 2014
Exile and Nomadism in French and Hispanic Women's Writing
Kate Averis
Studies In Comparative Literature 31
- ‘Averis skilfully negotiates a corpus that encompasses six writers, two languages, and several nations in an engaging style and with careful structuring, which unfailingly maintains her reader’s engagement. This study offers a very welcome re-evaluation of exile as a linguistic, psychological, gendered, and existential site.’ — Trudy Agar, French Studies 69.4, October 2015, 560-61
- ‘The originality and importance of this study in the field of Comparative Literature lies in the fact not only that it analyses exiled women writers (instead of exiled men writers) but also that these writers’ homelands are different, making the research findings more valid as they are extremely representative of women who write away from their birth countries... Averis’ analysis is extremely comprehensive, clearly exposed and well supported with a solid and respected bibliography.’ — Verónica Añover, Modern and Contemporary France 23.3, 2015, 410-11
- ‘This book draws a new and original path within the analysis of contemporary women’s exilic writing and the nomadic configuration of identity. Not only does it develop key notions of exile and women’s writing, applying them to illustrative cases, it also articulates connections that overturn preconceived arguments, such as the exilic stereotyped figures still in use in Euro-American theorizations, or the negative connotations of exile, which are replaced by the idea of exile as a productive and creative site in which more fluid identities are rebuilt.’ — Marianna Deganutti, OCCT Review online, October 2015
Published March 2015
Samuel Butler against the Professionals: Rethinking Lamarckism 1860–1900
David Gillott
Studies In Comparative Literature 32
- ‘Gillott’s book provides a convincing and well-structured analysis of the work of the novelist, art historian and amateur scientist Samuel Butler in the late nineteenth-century British context, focus- ing in particular on his research on art and literature.’ — Cristiano Turbil, British Journal for the History of Science 49.2, 2006, 300-01
Published September 2016
Translating Myth
Edited by Ben Pestell, Pietra Palazzolo and Leon Burnett
Studies In Comparative Literature 37
Published December 2016
The Rhetoric of Exile: Duress and the Imagining of Force
Vladimir Zorić
Studies In Comparative Literature 39
- ‘Since the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise and down to the exodus of Jews from Germany triggered by Kristallnacht, followed most recently by the flight of millions from the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, exile has constituted a basic experience of human history and myth, summoning forth a library of commentary... Zorić has taken a rich and fascinating topic and exposed it fruitfully to various theoretical analyses.’ — Theodore Ziolkowski, Modern Language Review 113.2, April 2018, 363-64 (full text online)
- ‘The book has something of the virtues of classical philology, such as erudition and close reading of the overall European literary tradition in original languages. It is equally commendable for widening its scope to the literary depictions of exilic experience in often overlooked East and Central European literatures, thus escaping the rather common fault of essentially reducing European intellectual and imaginative experiences to its Western parts.’ — Aleksandar Pavlović, European History Quarterly 48.2, 402-03
Published September 2017
Sublime Conclusions: Last Man Narratives from Apocalypse to Death of God
Robert K. Weninger
Studies In Comparative Literature 43
- unsigned notice, The Year's Work in English Studies 98.1, 2019, 657-58
Published August 2018
Utopian Identities: A Cognitive Approach to Literary Competitions
Clementina Osti
Studies In Comparative Literature 41
Published April 2019
A Modernist in Exile: The International Reception of H. G. Adler (1910-1988)
Edited by Lynn L. Wolff
Studies In Comparative Literature 42
- ‘A very impressive collection of moving and thought-provoking essays... Because the contributors to this book have such detailed and specialized knowledge of H. G.’s life and work, and such a masterly ability to contextualize his wide-ranging achievement and relate their new work to earlier critical work, they set a new standard in Adler scholarship. Consequently this fascinating volume will doubtless enhance H. G.’s reputation both as an intellectual and as a writer of prose fiction, and become necessary reading for anyone who has any kind of interest in him and his work.’ — Richard Sheppard, Journal of European Studies 50.3, Autumn 2020, 295–301 (full text online)
- ‘This volume dedicated to H.G. Adler will prove edifying to seasoned scholars and newcomers alike... In contrast to Adorno, who - similar to many postmodernists - collapses traditions of value into barbarity and admits no distinction between the two, Adler struggles to maintain, describe, and explain the possibility of human goodness in the face of overwhelming evil. It is certainly true for Adler that in the world of the camps much, if not most, of the ability for ethical action was destroyed - but not all. And since this is true, Adler’s work challenges his readers to face the truth in its entirety and to define the scale of human value they will adhere to in the face of barbarity.’ — Traci S. O’Brien, Monatshefte 112.4, Winter 2020, 747-50
Depicting the Divine: Mikhail Bulgakov and Thomas Mann
Olga G. Voronina
Studies In Comparative Literature 47
- ‘Olga G. Voronina’s careful comparative study brings to light many of the parallel narrative strategies in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers... What sets Bulgakov and Mann apart from the mainstream, as Voronina convincingly shows, is their decision to engage polemically with biblical texts.’ — Thomas Seifrid, Comparative Literature Studies 57.3, 2020, 559-62
- ‘В заключение хочу сказать, что книга Ольги Ворониной инновативна в постановке исследовательской проблемы и плодотворна в ее решении. Завершаю рецензию на книгу цитатой из другого булгаковского романа: «Она дышит! Она живет!».’ — Irina Belobrovtseva, Scando-Slavica 67.2, 2021, 287-94 (full text online)
- ‘Voronina has created a convincing, far-researching, unique and engaging study of Bulgakov's and Mann's poetic versions of biblical narratives, which both de- and re-mythologize the source text and are characterized by syncretism and rich intertextuality. The book is undoubtedly interesting and inspiring not only for Slavic and German scholars but also for any reader who is interested in a different and innovative approach to the study of comparative literature. The spiritual, scientific, and scholarly merits of this book perfectly complement one another.’ — Natalia Kaloh Vid, Slavic Review full text online)
- ‘The first comparative study of The Master and Margarita and Joseph and His Brothers, and an important and original contribution to research on Bulgakov’s and Mann’s novels as well as on biblical literature in more general terms.’ — Sarah Fengler, Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation 30 September 2021
- ‘Depicting the Divine is a meticulously researched, impressive close reading of two novels... a valuable contribution to literary studies. In her nuanced close readings and thorough research of the two novels Voronina applies a specialist’s insight to both Bulgakov and Mann, paying attention to linguistic subtleties in the two languages and explaining them well to the English reader.’ — Eric Laursen, Russian Review 80.4, October 2021, 713-14 (full text online)
Death Sentences: Literature and State Killing
Edited by Birte Christ and Ève Morisi
Studies In Comparative Literature 49
Scenographies of Perception: Sensuousness in Hegel, Novalis, Rilke, and Proust
Christian Jany
Studies In Comparative Literature 45
- ‘Christian Jany’s Scenographies of Perception situates itself on well-traversed philosophical territory, but with a freshness unusual in a volume devoted to longstanding issues in the history of philosophy and theories of poetry and literature... A thought-provoking, cross-disciplinary account of the relationship between thought and perception that ought to appeal to students of German idealism and ro- manticism and their aftermath in the 20th century, and in a way that stays admirably close to the relevant texts and the concerns that animate them.’ — James D. Reid, Monatshefte 112.3, 2020, 555-57
Published September 2020
Mary Shelley and Europe: Essays in Honour of Jean de Palacio
Edited by Antonella Braida
Studies In Comparative Literature 55
- ‘A wonderful selection of essays which discusses an aspect of Mary Shelley’s life that was so important to her art and yet is perhaps under-emphasised in discussing her work.’ — Jacqueline Mulhallen, Women's Writing 6 March 2022