Agnès Varda Unlimited: Image, Music, Media
Edited by Marie-Claire Barnet
Moving Image 6•13 February 2017

  • ‘The essays in this important and richly illustrated volume edited by Marie-Claire Barnet focus on the film, installation art, photography, and use of music by the multi-faceted and creative soon-to-be nonagenarian, Agnès Varda... An inspiring and valuable volume.’ — Dervila Cooke, H-France 18, March 2018, no. 51
  • ‘A wide-angle approach highlighting not only Varda’s move towards art installations in the past decades, but also the influence of various creative forms, some of them non-visual – including photography, sculpture, music, architecture, poetry, and even video gaming – on her earlier works. Contributions span an incredibly broad range of artistic and critical perspectives... Inspires the reader to (re-)discover Varda’s work and its ‘unlimited’ potential: not only in that her work resists labels, but also because her imagination and artistic legacy seem to be boundless.’ — Elise Hugueny-Léger, Modern and Contemporary France 26.1, 2018, 99-100 (full text online)
  • ‘The book’s subtitle suggests that it will give attention to the frequently overlooked music employed in (and often written for) Varda’s films, and here it does not disappoint, with Phil Powrie’s essay offering an excellently informed, disciplined, and particularly well-illustrated investigation of L’Une chante, l’autre pas as the ‘feminist musical’ Varda has claimed it to be, and Hannah Mowat’s brilliantly entitled ‘Lara Croft dans un champ de patates: A Ludomusicological Approach to Agnès Varda’ drawing on ‘the emerging discipline of ludomusicology: a field in which soundscape is inseparable from the act of gameplay’. That Mowat’s essay is the single most stimulating contribution to the volume... says much not just about the consistently high quality of its contents, but also about the remarkably enduring spirit of playfulness and invention that has characterized Varda’s entire career, and with which she continues to engage and entertain us.’ — Kate Ince, Modern Language Review 113.3, July 2018, 663-64 (full text online)
  • ‘The authors all speak with palpable enthusiasm about their subjects, making the book thoroughly enjoyable and engaging.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 371
  • ‘Any student of Varda’s work will find something indispensable in this collection, which enhances, but in no way exhausts, the growing body of research celebrating the variety, the challenge, and the inclusive playfulness of one of France’s greatest artists.’ — Alison Smith, French Studies 72.3, July 2018, 482-83
  • ‘Une contribution riche et éclairante pour celles et ceux qui étudient l’oeuvre de Varda.’ — François Giraud, H-France 19, January 2019, no. 19

Arthur Golding’s A Moral Fabletalk and Other Renaissance Fable Translations
Edited by Liza Blake and Kathryn Vomero Santos
Tudor and Stuart Translations 12•3 January 2017

  • ‘An excellent overview of fable and its literary and educational significance for nearly two centuries, from William Caxton’s edition of 1484 to John Ogilby’s fables, last printed in 1675... this is an important book that every library should have, not only for the texts that it presents but also because it shows the remarkable range of cultural work done by fable during the long Renaissance.’ — Edward Wheatley, Renaissance Quarterly 2018, 70.4, 1652-54
  • ‘Overall, this collection is a significant contribution to the study of English Renaissance translations, an exceptional tool to understand the function of Aesopian fables in the early modern period, and an accessible new source for scholars interested in Golding's work. It would also work well in upper-level undergraduate courses, providing students with a fascinating and illuminating view of the world of Aesopian fables' translation. This magnificent volume will be an excellent addition for any library.’ — Florinda Ruiz, Sixteenth Century Journal XLVIII:3, 2017, 813-15
  • ‘Exhibits the same virtues as Kendal’s edition [of Chapman's Homer, TST 21]. The editors’ inclusion of a variety of Aesopian fables from the late fifteenth through the mid-seventeenth century, together with good reproductions of contemporary engravings and woodcuts, beautifully demonstrates the malleability of the genre.’ — Lowell Gallagher, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 58.1, Winter 2018, 219-77
  • ‘The collection’s extensive black-and-white woodcut and engraving reproductions, which appear on almost every other page, contribute substantially to its aesthetic appeal, while its large format and sturdy construction make it well worth the reasonable purchase price. Overall, this literally fabulous collection will make a welcome addition and substantial contribution to any scholarly library.’ — Mark Albert Johnston, Renaissance and Reformation 41.1, Winter 2018, 173-75
  • ‘The individual fables are supplemented by an index, a glossary of lesser-known terms, a comprehensive bibliography, and summaries of the publication history of each text, all of which help make the volume invaluable as a reference work.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.1, 2018, 115
  • ‘The fables are all illustrated with beautifully clear images taken from old texts. There is a concise and useful introduction covering literary- theoretical and -historical aspects of the fable as a kind of writing, and also the editorial principles used in preparing the texts... The new MHRA edition is justified on the grounds of its greater availability (it costs £35), and also because it contains a lot more material in the form of the fables by other authors. The range of authors and texts offered by the new edition is surely what will make it so valuable (and cheap) an edition to any university library.’ — Mike Pincombe, Spenser Review 48.2.14, Spring-Summer 2018
  • ‘This recent volume from the MHRA’s series Tudor & Stuart Translations offers a fascinating insight into the production, circulation, and consumption of the genre of the fable, often neglected in early modern scholarship. The editors perform a valuable service in recognizing that much research still remains to be executed in this area of English Studies, an area which is all too often overshadowed by better- established traditions of theorization and criticism in other European languages.’ — Andrew Hiscock, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 113-15 (full text online)

Arthur Symons, Selected Early Poems
Edited by Chris Baldick and Jane Desmarais
Critical Texts 42 / Jewelled Tortoise 3•11 April 2017

  • ‘How gratifying it is, then, to have not one but two new volumes of Symons’ work published by the Modern Humanities Research Association’s Jewelled Tortoise imprint, thoroughly edited and placed in both a biographical and cultural context. The volumes’ editors are all wise enough to balance their informative footnotes with letting Symons’ work shine on its own.’ — Heather Marcovitch, Review of English Studies 2017
  • ‘Selected Early Poems by Arthur Symons is a carefully and beautifully edited book. ... The introduction and notes, together with the prose selections, provide illuminating material for the deeper appreciation and understanding of Symons’ poetic work. It is a book that should provide pleasure for scholars and all who are interested in the literature of the late-nineteenth century.’ — Noreen Doody, The OScholars September 2017
  • ‘These excellent critical editions of Symons’s poetry and prose… Symons emerges much clearer for their informative and well-judged notes.’ — Kate Hext, Times Literary Supplement 12 January 2018, 3-4
  • ‘The great service these two editions do to the study of Symons, and more broadly in developing our understanding of the contours and development of fin de siècle culture as it was negotiated during the period between Victorianism and modernism. We are left with the impression that the Jewelled Tortoise series is a vital scholarly project for researchers working on the period, and the hope that they will continue to publish such important scholarly editions.’ — Giles Whiteley, Notes & Queries September 2018, 459-61
  • ‘A judicious assortment of Symons’s early and late poems, and a small sampling of reviews and Symons’s own prose to add context, make this a one-stop shop for anyone wishing to conduct further research into Symons’s poetic oeuvre... Under the expert eye of Catherine Maxwell and Stefano Evangelista, this series is setting a new standard in fin-de-siècle textual scholarship... Just as importantly, these texts are very reasonably priced, which means they can be set in courses on Decadence and fin-de-siècle culture, bringing Symons’s work—enriched by rigorous scholarship—to a new generation of critics.’ — Alex Murray, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 867-70 (full text online)

Arthur Symons, Spiritual Adventures
Edited by Nicholas Freeman
Critical Texts 39 / Jewelled Tortoise 2•10 February 2017

  • ‘How gratifying it is, then, to have not one but two new volumes of Symons’ work published by the Modern Humanities Research Association’s Jewelled Tortoise imprint, thoroughly edited and placed in both a biographical and cultural context. The volumes’ editors are all wise enough to balance their informative footnotes with letting Symons’ work shine on its own.’ — Heather Marcovitch, Review of English Studies 2017
  • ‘These excellent critical editions of Symons’s poetry and prose… Symons emerges much clearer for their informative and well-judged notes.’ — Kate Hext, Times Literary Supplement 12 January 2018, 3-4
  • ‘The great service these two editions do to the study of Symons, and more broadly in developing our understanding of the contours and development of fin de siècle culture as it was negotiated during the period between Victorianism and modernism. We are left with the impression that the Jewelled Tortoise series is a vital scholarly project for researchers working on the period, and the hope that they will continue to publish such important scholarly editions.’ — Giles Whiteley, Notes & Queries September 2018, 459-61
  • ‘Freeman’s brilliantly researched Introduction makes a compelling case for these stories as an ‘intriguing example of early modernism, providing further evidence of that movement’s evolutionary development rather than implying a clean break from earlier conventions’... Freeman’s footnotes and introductions to each story are a model: concise, judicious, and enhancing the reading experience without imposing interpretation... Under the expert eye of Catherine Maxwell and Stefano Evangelista, this series is setting a new standard in fin-de-siècle textual scholarship... Just as importantly, these texts are very reasonably priced, which means they can be set in courses on Decadence and fin-de-siècle culture, bringing Symons’s work—enriched by rigorous scholarship—to a new generation of critics.’ — Alex Murray, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 867-70 (full text online)

Blanchot and the Moving Image: Fascination and Spectatorship
Calum Watt
Moving Image 8•29 September 2017

  • ‘Watt’s study is exemplary in the impressive range of texts and references that it draws on, and in the intensive seriousness of its discussions. It will be an inevitable reference for anyone venturing into this uncanny territory.’ — Jeff Fort, H-France 18.143, 2018
  • ‘One of the striking things to emerge from Calum Watt’s impressive study is the extent to which contemporary discussion of the art of film draws on Maurice Blanchot’s thought... [This book] does justice independently to each of its subjects.’ — Michael Holland, French Studies 72.4, October 2018, 632-33 (full text online)
  • ‘Exhaustive scholarship abetted by meticulous referencing, and a keen eye for the specificities of a certain mode of exposure (one which is remarked upon in the author’s Introduction) to the cinematographic as work (and unworking), are all commendable traits of the latest addition to a significant series.’ — Garin Dowd, Modern Language Review 114.3, July 2019, 572-573 (full text online)
  • ‘Blanchot and the Moving Image seems like an opening salvo in a larger intellectual project, one that will track the ways in which—as one of the study's most exciting claims has it—"cinema's contribution to thought is fascination".’ — Mikko Tuhkanen, Postmodern Culture 29.2, January 2019
  • ‘Watt makes a convincing case for Blanchot's appositeness to the moving image and, in the process, discovers that Blanchot's phantasmatic presence is already insinuated within film theory's margins... Overall, Blanchot and the Moving Image is an impressive piece of research that betrays a wealth of cognizance, not only of Blanchot's own writings, but also of his subtle yet persistent influence within twentieth and twenty first century continental philosophy and, subsequently, Anglophone film theory.’ — Corey P. Cribb, Film-Philosophy 24.1, February 2020, 71-74 (full text online)

Bodies of Disorder: Gender and Degeneration in Baroja and Blasco Ibáñez
Katharine Murphy
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 26•1 November 2017

  • ‘Murphy highlights the substantial points of comparison between the two authors, despite the hostility between them and their very different journeys through the literary canon. Taken in its entirety, this book deftly sets about dismantling quite a number of critical distinctions and commonplaces... This will be a valuable book for anyone working on the Spanish novel, discourses of degeneration across Europe, cultural studies, and on the dynamics of female literacy and agency.’ — Geraldine Lawless, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 96.9, 2019, 1553-55

Cognitive Confusions: Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture
Edited by Ita Mac Carthy, Kirsti Sellevold and Olivia Smith
Legenda (General Series) •13 February 2017

  • ‘Cognition-centered scholarship is here, and Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture is a welcome new contribution... I found myself wanting to dialogue with each of these writers... they enter into essential new investigations into the diversity of our cognitive experiences.’ — Donald Beecher, Renaissance Quarterly 71.1, 2018, 267-69
  • ‘Sustained and intensive collaboration is evident in the collection, where every chapter displays a profound and fruitful engagement with cognitive psychology and philosophy that illuminates both early modern literary texts and contemporary science... These essays are thought-provoking, rigorous, and inventive themselves, and as exemplary models of properly collaborative research should interest early modernists, literary scholars, and other researchers into cognition.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 372

Commemorating Mirabeau: Mirabeau aux Champs-Elysées and other texts
Edited by Jessica Goodman
Critical Texts 58•1 August 2017

  • ‘In this fine book, Jessica Goodman provides the full corrected and modernized texts of five plays from the era of the French Revolution, three of them published in 1791 and two available only in manuscript... Goodman has done wonderful detective work, providing us with the performance history of the plays, the number of people likely to have seen them, and the amount the authors made on the productions... I hope that Goodman will continue to haunt the archives and bring more gems like these plays back into circulation, and I am confident that readers of her introduction and notes will find them useful and instructive.’ — Robert H. Blackman, H-France February 2018, 18.30
  • ‘In this intriguing volume, Jessica Goodman unites five texts dating from the weeks following the death of Mirabeau on 2 April 1791... Particularly interesting is her analysis of Mirabeau aux Champs-Élysées and Gouges’s authorial strategies. This volume is an important contribution to scholarship on the Revolutionary period and, more generally, to our understanding of the commemorative practices of the late eighteenth century.’ — John R. Iverson, French Studies 72.4, October 2018, 601-02

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)

Cultural Reception, Translation and Transformation from Medieval to Modern Italy: Essays in Honour of Martin McLaughlin
Edited by Guido Bonsaver, Brian Richardson, and Giuseppe Stellardi
Legenda (General Series) •17 May 2017

  • ‘A remarkable unified collection... [the essays] may be read in any order, so rich and abundant are the resonances among them.’ — Carmine G. Di Biase, Times Literary Supplement 8 May 2018
  • ‘Zygmunt G. Barański presents a deeply contextualized understanding of the Orpheus myth in Petrarch’s Canzoniere, taking into account Virgilian and Ovidian antecedents, and the traces of their elaboration in works including the Bucolicum carmen and Familiares. At the heart of his essay, Barański boldly, but not unpersuasively, asserts Petrarch’s lyric collection of fragments to be “the great overlooked Orphic text of the Western tradition”. Brian Richardson’s essay is also among the most ambitious, tackling a massive quantity of Renaissance Italian poetic production—extempore Latin and vernacular lyric compositions—and he does so with aplomb, providing perhaps the first categorization with a qualitative/theoretical valuation of this important but almost entirely overlooked subgenre of poetry... Meriting special distinction, Peter Hainsworth’s contribution rescues John Dickson Batten’s illustrations to Dante’s Inferno (1897–1900) from their relative oblivion.’ — Sherry Roush, Renaissance Quarterly 71.9, October 2018, 1193-95
  • ‘The scope, historical locus and chronological ambition of the present volume are exceptionally wide and rich... The quality of the contributions is invariably high and all are case-studies relevant to the book’s central preoccupation with cultural contact and interchange... an admirable collection, full of stimulus and surprises, handsomely produced by Legenda.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.2, July 2019, 265-66 (full text online)
  • ‘This volume brings to mind one of Calvino’s own definitions, in his Why Read The Classics?: ‘The classics are those books which come to us bearing the aura of previous interpretations, and trailing behind them the traces they have left in the culture or cultures (or just in the language and customs) through which they have passed’ (McLaughlin’s translation). The volume invites readers into the palimpsest that is Italian culture, which is to say, among other things, its imitations, its intertextuality and transmediality, and its translations.’ — Antonella Braida, Translation and Literature 29, 2020, 291-96 (full text online)
  • ‘The volume reads as a user guide to the most updated views on literary theory and cultural studies, demonstrating how ‘open’ a field Italian studies has become in recent years. Texts—in a semiological sense, hence comprising all meaningful artefacts of culture—are scrutinized through a wide range of approaches, including linguistic, philological, thematic, intertextual, historical, sociological, comparative. and hermeneutical.’ — Oscar Schiavone, Modern Language Review 115.3, July 2020, 737-41 (full text online)

Decadence and the Senses
Edited by Jane Desmarais and Alice Condé
Legenda (General Series) •17 May 2017

  • ‘I found Maxwell’s discussion of the tuberose, and more speci cally Walter Pater’s conscription of that flower to describe his own rarefied prose style, to be particularly interesting, as Pater’s writing is so often considered the acme of Decadent prose. It seems that the orchid that famously reminded Dorian Gray of the seven deadly sins should, perhaps, have been a tuberose. Equally interesting is Angela Dunstan’s suggestion that Theodore Watts-Dunton’s roman-à-clef Aylwin became for readers a means of owning the celebrity of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, or the notion extended by Liz Renes that John Singer Sargent’s Madame X should be considered a meditation on the white, sculptural body and its changing role in modern art.’ — Jamie Horrocks, English Literature in Translation 61.4, 2018, 525-28
  • ‘It is perhaps fitting that the unity of a book on Decadent literature should be best experienced ‘decomposed’ to give place to the independence of each chapter. There is no doubt, however, that the high quality of its constituent parts forms a significant contribution to Sensory Studies and that the collection is a ‘must-read’ for any student of Decadence at the fin de siècle and beyond.’ — Patricia Pulham, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 128-29 (full text online)
  • ‘Desmarais and Condé have done an enormous service by opening up this can of repulsive worms.’ — Dennis Denisoff, Victorian Studies 61.2, Winter 2019, 554-56

Enlightenment and Religion in German and Austrian Literature
Ritchie Robertson
Selected Essays 1•25 May 2017

  • ‘A tour de force in the study of German-speaking cultures with a range and depth that takes readers from the Classical period in the eighteenth century to twentieth-century Modernism... Here we are confronted with, or rather treated to [...] erudition, insight and unerring logic.’ — Carol Tully, Times Literary Supplement 23 January 2018
  • ‘Any ambitious colleagues wishing to uncover the secret behind Robertson’s talent for producing the appropriate formulation are again referred to his introductory remarks, in which he recalls having learnt to use a typewriter whose roller would only turn in one direction, making it impossible to go back and emend what had been written. The present volume of essays suggests that there could be no better method of training future scholars than by providing them with similarly challenging, character-building implements.’ — Osman Durrani, Modern Language Review 113.2, April 2018, 433-35 (full text online)

Foreign Parts: German and Austrian Actors on the British Stage 1933-1960
Richard Dove
Germanic Literatures 15•29 September 2017

  • ‘Readers with high expectations will not be disappointed by Foreign Parts. It is a fascinating presentation of the careers of five actors who, forced to leave Germany and Austria by Hitler, set about plying their trade on the stage in Britain... Dove’s account of the actors’ careers in pre-war and wartime Britain is exemplary.’ — Anthony Grenville, AJR Journal 2018
  • ‘The stories that unfold are engaging when viewed as biographies, because of the different challenges and problems each of the actors had to confront. Their different treatment when Britain decided to intern ‘enemy aliens’ reflects the chaotic and sometimes extreme nature of wartime bureaucracy, and their choices after the war are fascinating, with only Mannheim choosing to return to Germany.’ — David Barnett, Modern Language Review 114.2, April 2019, 411-12 (full text online)

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)

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

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

George Chapman: Homer's Iliad
Edited by Robert S. Miola
Tudor and Stuart Translations 20•11 September 2017

  • ‘The MHRA edition vastly improves our ability to appreciate Chapman’s Homer as English poetry. The new edition presents a far more accessible text of Chapman’s Homer than any previous edition... The new MHRA editions undoubtedly surpass previous editions for classroom use. They make it practical, perhaps for the first time, to incorporate Chapman into courses on Jacobean poetry, on classical reception and the history of translation, on the materiality of the early modern book.’ — Sarah Van der Laan, Spenser Review 48.2.15, Spring-Summer 2018
  • ‘For the significantly improved access to Chapman’s Homer and for the rich collection of pointers in the footnotes, both of these volumes are worthy additions to the MHRA series. Miola and Kendal also allow their affection for Chapman to energize their editions, which provides the reader with some extra motivation to tackle these challenging texts.’ — Sheldon Brammall, Translation and Literature 27, 2018, 223–31
  • ‘This expertly edited volume, suitable for scholars, students, and general readers alike, significantly expands what we know about the cultural transmission of classical texts in early modern Europe. Presenting new insights regarding the reception and dissemination of Homeric epic in early modern England, it also helpfully illuminates Chapman’s specific contributions as versifier, wordsmith, and critic.’ — Melinda J. Gough, Renaissance and Reformation 42.4, Autumn 2019, 208-10
  • ‘Miola’s edition at last makes available the riches of this enormously influential translation for early modern Britain in a highly accessible and affordable publication. It constitutes an invaluable companion to the earlier publication in the series of Chapman’s Odyssey.’ — Andrew Hiscock, Modern Language Review 115.2, 2020, 445-47 (full text online)

Innovations in Corruption Studies
Edited by Alena Ledeneva, Roxana Bratu, and Philipp Köker
Slavonic and East European Review 95.1•1 February 2017

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

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

Isak Dinesen Reading Søren Kierkegaard: On Christianity, Seduction, Gender, and Repetition
Mads Bunch
Germanic Literatures 13•3 April 2017

  • ‘The claim is that Dinesen’s reading of and interest in Kierkegaard are neglected within Dinesen research. Although various scholars have analysed certain texts in the light of Kierkegaard, I think Bunch is right. There has been no in-depth study of Kierkegaard’s significance for Dinesen prior to his book. Hence, [this book] is a valuable contribution to a more extensive understanding and documentation of the textual relation between the two Danish authors.’ — Tone Selboe, Modern Language Review 113.4, October 2018, 904-06 (full text online)

Jews, Jewish Difference and Austrian Culture: Literary and Historical Perspectives
Edited by Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman
Austrian Studies 24•10 February 2017

Les Veuves créoles
Edited by Julia Prest
Critical Texts 34•11 April 2017

  • ‘In compiling this edition, Prest aims to reveal how the play could be ‘of considerable interest today in the context of renewed and ongoing research into the story of French colonialism and, increasingly, in colonial and créole drama’ (p. 5). This edition of Les Veuves créoles is a concise and riveting introduction to these research areas, and would in addition provide an ideal teaching tool.’ — Vanessa Lee, Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies 8.2, Autumn 2017, 26-27

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

Marie NDiaye: Inhospitable Fictions
Shirley Jordan
Research Monographs in French Studies 38•29 September 2017

  • ‘An excellent addition to the growing corpus of NDiaye scholarship... As Jordan also convincingly highlights throughout her study, NDiaye’s work is profoundly ethical, never cynical. Her inhospitable universe challenges us to look for our own ethical compass—not a ready-made hospitality manual. And the merit of Jordan’s study is to help us chart a course. Her readings create, in our encounter with NDiaye’s text, a welcoming critical third space, a hospitable space where writer, critic, and reader read and orient themselves together.’ — Elisabeth Arnould-Bloomfield, H-France 18.154, 2018
  • ‘Shirley Jordan focuses her exploration in an admirably sharp and focused manner on the problem of hospitality as it arises again and again across NDiaye’s oeuvre... Jordan’s achievement is remarkable... The reader emerges from Jordan’s analysis somewhat humbled by such sustained exposure to a scholarly voice that attempts truly to put into practice its chosen theme of ethical hospitality towards its subject.’ — Andrew Asibong, French Studies 72.4, October 2018, 635 (full text online)
  • ‘Inhospitable Fictions will interest all who have read NDiaye and all those working on her. Whether or not a reader accepts that a concern for hospitality is what ultimately drives NDiaye’s work, it will be difficult to dislodge the way in which Jordan has read her with that particular driver in mind. This monograph adds the philosophical and the anthropological lens to the psychoanalytical lens in its reading of NDiaye, introduces women into the traditionally male-based discourse on hospitality, innovatively draws our attention to the Odyssey as NDiaye’s core intertext on hospitality, and tellingly relates the repressed domestic and familial traumas that surface in her texts to the multiple inhospitalities of colonialism and post-colonial France.’ — Pauline Eaton, Modern and Contemporary France 26.4, Autumn 2018, 431-37 (full text online)
  • ‘Jordan successfully highlights how the theme of inhospitality can work as a master key to unlock NDiaye’s eclectic textual experimentations. Because it surveys such a wide variety of the author’s texts, Jordan’s monograph can serve as an excellent introduction to NDiaye’s work.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 55.1, January 2019, 118-19
  • ‘In this monograph Shirley Jordan undertakes a consummate examination of the theme of inhospitality which permeates the œuvre of the critically acclaimed French author Marie NDiaye... Jordan’s exceptional work makes a vital contribution to NDiayean scholarship.’ — Alison Marmont, Modern Language Review 115.1, 2020, 185-86 (full text online)

Michel-Jean Sedaine: Théâtre de la Révolution
Edited by Mark Darlow
Critical Texts 63•29 September 2017

  • ‘Théâtre de la Révolution is an impeccably researched edition of Michel-Jean Sedaine’s last operatic works... Sedaine’s Théâtre de la Révolution will be required reading for scholars of eighteenth-century theatre and music. Thanks to Darlow’s introduction, the work is also an essential contribution to scholarship on cultural production and policy during the Revolution... Overall, eighteenth-century French musical theatre, ignored by dix-huitièmistes for generations, has a champion in Mark Darlow and a welcome new title in his edition of Sedaine’s last librettos.’ — Logan Connors, H-France 18.95, April 2018
  • ‘This is another admirable critical edition from Darlow which sheds new light on a playwright’s transition from Ancien Régime to Revolution.’ — Clare Siviter, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 144-45 (full text online)

Minding Borders: Resilient Divisions in Literature, the Body and the Academy
Edited by Nicola Gardini, Adriana X. Jacobs, Ben Morgan, Mohamed-Salah Omri and Matthew Reynolds
Transcript 5•1 November 2017

  • ‘The contributors not only bring to light the long history of border-making, but also the ways in which it is possible to construct a methodological framework by which to interrogate these practices.’ — Fariha Shaikh, Modern Language Review 114.4, October 2019, 845-46 (full text online)