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the original manuscript and a transcription which ‘pares away the obfuscating aspects of unfamiliar handwriting, outdated orthographical conventions, and the deleterious effects of time on paper’.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)
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)
Sublime Conclusions: Last Man Narratives from Apocalypse to Death of God
Robert K. Weninger
Studies In Comparative Literature 43•29 September 2017
- unsigned notice, The Year's Work in English Studies 98.1, 2019, 657-58