Published January 1988

Pope, Swift, and Their Circle
Edited by C. J. Rawson
Yearbook of English Studies 18


Published January 1989

The French Revolution in English Literature and Art
Edited by J. R. Watson
Yearbook of English Studies 19


Published July 1991

The Austrian Enlightenment and its Aftermath
Edited by Edward Timms and Ritchie Robertson
Austrian Studies 2


Published June 1996

Privileged Anonymity: The Writings of Madame de Lafayette
Anne Green
Research Monographs in French Studies 1

  • ‘Produces many fresh insights, and demonstrates admirably that La Fayette's writing repays detailed scrutiny... Readable, instructive and accessible: valuable for specialists and illuminating for the general reader.’ — Maya Slater, Times Literary Supplement 1996
  • ‘This thought-provoking study inaugurates a major new series of critical monographs... Offers many fresh insights into these important texts, and it is to be warmly welcomed.’ — Jonathan Mallinson, French Studies LIV.2, 2000, 215-6
  • Luisa Benatti, Studi francesi 124, 1998, 135

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 December 2002

The Inn and the Traveller: Digressive Topographies in the Early Modern European Novel
Will McMorran
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘The book could serve, almost by the way, as a brief introduction to the modes of early narrative fiction in any of the European languages on which it draws.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies XL.1, 2004, 112
  • ‘McMorran's approach offers a number of intriguing comparisons among a set of novels not itherto considered together in a single study. It places Fielding and Sterne within a broader European context, which so many Anglocentric treatments fail to do. Most important, it usefully interrogates the ways that travel within a text reflects, influences, and subverts travel through a text.’ — Joseph F. Bartolomeo, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 17:2, 2005, 288-90
  • ‘A highly accomplished comparatist, McMorran respects the specificities of the national traditions to which the works he discusses belong while teasing out the overarching European narrative on which his interpretation depends.’ — Charles Forsdick, Modern Language Review 102.1, January 2007, 187-88 (full text online)

Published May 2005

Benedikte Naubert (1765-1819) and her Relations to English Culture
Hilary Brown
Bithell Series of Dissertations 27 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 63

  • ‘A detailed bibliography [rounds] out this meticulous, scholarly work. Brown’s thorough and perceptive investigation of Naubert’s fiction and English literature makes previous work on the author obsolete. It takes Naubert’s oeuvre out of the niche of gender studies and places it squarely in the mainstream of German literary history and in the rich tradition of Anglo-German literary and cultural cross-currents.’ — Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Modern Language Review 102, 2007, 565 (full text online)

Published September 2006

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: A Life of Culture
Malcolm Cook
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘We tend to think of the author of Paul et Virginie as a one-hit wonder. This new biography shows that he was a man of many parts... Malcolm Cook draws on his unrivalled knowledge of Bernardin's manuscripts to give the life and works a personal and "cultural" frame.’ — Robin Howells, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 203-04 (full text online)
  • ‘An intriguing book, full of surprises: a window into the mind of the researcher as well into the life of his subject.’ — Dena Goodman, French Studies 479
  • ‘Maintaining an almost scientific objectivity, the biographer proceeds with caution in his assessments, reevaluating and correcting previous sources without speculating unnecessarily in the absence of evidence. From this process emerges the unembellished and contained sketch of a writer who lived a full and interesting life during challenging times. Specialists and general readers alike will certainly want to know more about Bernardin after reading this biography.’ — Christina Ionescu, French Review 82.1, 2009, 159-60
  • ‘Commentateur des œuvres de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, historien de la littérature de la période révolutionnaire, particulièrement intéressé par les questions de réception (comme en témoignent les colloques qu’il a organisés sur les réécritures et sur la critique), Cook donne une biographie qui est au confluent de ses thèmes d’étude de prédilection, et qui doit être lue parallèlement à ses travaux antérieurs.’ — Youmna Charara, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 22.3, 2010, 735-36
  • ‘This is a wonderfully readable and insightful book, exceptionally richly illustrated with unpublished manuscript documents, and written with a true love for its subject.’ — Mark Darlow, Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies 33.2, June 2010, 284

Published August 2007

Regressive Fictions: Graffigny, Rousseau, Bernardin
Robin Howells
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Robin Howells investigates the connections between three eighteenth-century best-sellers in chronological order... everyone will find fresh insights on the eighteenth-century success stories.’ — Simon Davies, French Studies 63.1, 2009, 88-89

Published December 2008

The Cervantean Heritage: Reception and Influence of Cervantes in Britain
Edited by J. A. G. Ardila
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Resulta reconfortante para cualquier investigador interesado en los textos de Miguel de Cervantes comprobar que, tras la explosión de estudios surgidos en torno a las celebraciones del año 2005, cuarto centenario de la publicación del Quijote, el cervantismo está más vivo que nunca. De hecho, es precisamente ahora, tras el paso del ciclón de publicaciones que trajo consigo dicho aniversario, cuando surge la oportunidad de realizar análisis nacidos más al calor de la curiosidad real y el rigor y menos de la oportunidad o el oportunismo. Este libro supone una muy valiosa aportación para el campo de los estudios cervantinos pero también para el estudio de la literatura británica, y especialistas de ambos campos encontrarán en él material ineludible y original con el que ganar en conocimiento y sobre todo, una herramienta con la que continuar avanzando en el no siempre bien conocido ni estudiado campo de las relaciones literarias y culturales hispano-británicas.’ — Ana M. Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Iberoamericana IX.36, 2009, 189-91
  • ‘Rather than emanating from the Cervantesmania that has informed most of the book-length studies on Cervantes's influence on English-speaking writers [since the 2005 anniversary year], the present volume benefits from the fact that its contributors come from among the pre-2005 generation of critics, who have drawn on their experience of digging out Cervantes's actual influence on British literature.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.1, January 2011

Pre-Histories and Afterlives: Studies in Critical Method
Edited by Anna Holland and Richard Scholar
Legenda (General Series)


Published July 2009

Retrospectives: Essays in Literature, Poetics and Cultural History by Terence Cave
Terence Cave, edited by Neil Kenny and Wes Williams
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘A very welcome overview of several of the central themes of Cave’s work.’ — John D. Lyons, French Studies 65.1, January 2011, 93-94
  • ‘An excellent overview, enhanced by the editors’ astute introduction, of this highly influential critic’s ideas... an impressive testament to a distinguished and continuing critical career.’ — Emma Herdman, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1156-57 (full text online)

Sensibility, Reading and Illustration: Spectacles and Signs in Graffigny, Marivaux and Rousseau
Ann Lewis
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘A detailed and compelling analysis... Moreover Lewis skilfully combines insights from various fields (literary history, genre studies, theory of representation, reader response) to generate thought-provoking analysis, to provide a nuanced assessment of sensibility, and to suggest additional avenues that warrant investigation.’ — Diane Beelen Woody, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 23.3, Spring 2011, 586-89
  • ‘Thoroughly researched, clearly written, and handsomely produced, this book is a significant contribution to scholarship on French eighteenth-century literature... Readers should be glad that Lewis has so adeptly read the signs and spectacles.’ — Heidi Bostic, French Review 84.5, April 2011, 1029-30
  • ‘Précis, bien informé et solidement documenté, l’ouvrage constitue un apport précieux et stimulant aux recherches sur l’illustration romanesque auquel il articule une réflexion intéressante sur le genre et la réception du roman sensible.’ — Florence Magnot-Ogilvy, French Studies 66.2, April 2012, 245-46
  • ‘[Lewis's] meticulous approach is valuable in providing an at-a-glance overview of the numerous illustrated editions of these well-known novels as well as a point of reference for researchers in the field. The consideration of nineteenth- and twentieth-century illustrations adds depth to Lewis’s study and gives credence to her theory of illustration as a ‘reading’ of a text at various points in history. This is exemplified by the ‘Romantic’ interpretation of the character of Saint-Preux in the nineteenth century, for example, or the eroticised presentation of La Vie de Marianne for a French audience of the 1930s.’ — Una Brogan, Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies 35.3, September 2012, 444-45
  • ‘En somme, Intimicy and distance parvient à ouvrir des horizons insoupçonnés sur un concept indissociable de la modernité et saura profiter à nombre de chercheur.cheuse.s qui s’intéressent aux cultures du XIXe siècle.’ — Daniel Long, Dalhousie French Studies 119, 2021, 184-185

Published February 2010

The Wallenstein Figure in German Literature and Historiography 1790-1920
Steffan Davies
Bithell Series of Dissertations 36 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 76


Published June 2010

Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron, Le Cosmopolite, ou le citoyen du monde (1750)
Edited by Édouard Langille
Critical Texts 22


Published September 2010

A Culture of Mimicry: Laurence Sterne, His Readers and the Art of Bodysnatching
Warren L. Oakley
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 73

  • ‘A brief but fascinating study of the appropriations of Sterne's fiction.’ — Devoney Looser, Studies in English Literature 51.3, 2011, 713-14
  • ‘Sterne's body was snatched after his death, turned up in an operating theatre, was recognized, and reburied. As Warren Oakley makes very clear in this brilliant dissertation, it was not only his corpse but also his corpus (in the sense of literary output) which underwent remarkable transformations.’ — Peter de Voogd, The Shandean 22, 2011, 168-70

Diderot and Lessing as Exemplars of a Post-Spinozist Mentality
Louise Crowther
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 78


Published October 2010

Stéphanie de Genlis, ‘Histoire de la duchesse de C***’
Edited by Mary S. Trouille
Critical Texts 21

  • ‘This fine edition would be a welcome addition to undergraduate and graduate courses on the Gothic novel, alongside now more familiar English authors ... Trouille has done those of us who focus on women’s writing in the pre-Revolutionary period a great service.’ — Gillian Dow, Modern Language Review 107.3, 2012, 944-45 (full text online)

Published February 2011

The Libertine’s Nemesis: The Prude in Clarissa and the roman libertin
James Fowler
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘The beguiling cover of this Legenda volume is well matched by the book’s contents. Fowler’s thesis is an original and well-argued one: the establishment of a symbiotic relationship between the libertine and the prude in a number of key eighteenth-century texts... the argument is persuasive and elegant, and we are swept along by the author’s enthusiasm for his subject.’ — John Phillips, French Studies 66.3, July 2012, 402

Published March 2011

Aza ou le Nègre
Edited by Loïc Thommeret
Critical Texts 27

  • Aza ou le Nègre, an unknown French literary fiction unearthed and introduced to us by Loïc Thommeret, certainly highlights what can be considered to be a revolution in the genre of eighteenth-century French colonial fiction advocating the abolition of slavery.’ — Christian Kittery, Modern Language Notes 127, 2012, 947-48
  • ‘On ne peut que remercier Loïc Thommeret d’avoir retrouvé ce roman et de l’avoir publié ... Ce petit livre est appelé à devenir un grand classique.’ — Marie-Hélène Huet, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 25.2, 2013, 480
  • ‘This is a most welcome addition to the growing number of previously little-known and largely inaccessible texts representing Blacks republished in recent years. ... Aza ou le Nègre would make an excellent text for undergraduate study.’ — Roger Little, Modern Language Review 107, 2012, 624-25 (full text online)

Published July 2011

Textual Wanderings: The Theory and Practice of Narrative Digression
Edited by Rhian Atkin
Legenda (General Series)


Published August 2011

German Women's Writing of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Future Directions in Feminist Criticism
Edited by Helen Fronius and Anna Richards
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘The volume will be of great use to students and researchers alike, as a source of well-written critical scholarship and of pointers to severe deficits in current research. It offers productive methodologies for taking the enquiry forward in areas vital to a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the place of women writers as part of the whole picture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cultural history in the German-speaking lands.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.4 (October 2012), 489
  • ‘Thus the book’s structure, like its title, ultimately collapses: the future has not yet happened. Yet it is glimpsed here—and it will indeed necessarily entail killing off and reviving the female author and the female reader, undoing and redoing gender, sexuality, and herstory, embracing pluralism and firing the canon. And it will only have been achieved once the gatekeepers become contributors and all critics—including men—are doing feminist criticism.’ — Robert Gillett, Modern Language Review 109.2, April 2014, 547-48 (full text online)

Published December 2012

Furetière's Roman bourgeois and the Problem of Exchange: Titular Economies
Craig Moyes
Research Monographs in French Studies 34

  • ‘Although this highlighting of the connection between Le Roman bourgeois and the Dictionnaire universel is not new, it provides a stream of stimulating insights, taking the argument far beyond the intertextuality that is usually the limit of critical concern in this area. A chapter on ‘Numismatics’, for instance, moves easily from Furetière’s satire of bourgeois marriage as a model of social and financial exchange, encapsulated in the ‘Tariffe des partis sortables’, by way of the décri of monetary (but also literary) value, to the linguistic ‘gold standard’ that the Académie intended to establish with its dictionary, so alien to Furetière’s own aims.’ — Mark Bannister, French Studies 68.3, July 2014, 394-96
  • ‘L’intérêt de cet essai de critique littéraire ne se situe, en effet, non seulement dans sa lecture minutieuse, singulière, souvent ingénieuse du Roman bourgeois dont il souligne bien les pièges et les passionnants replis, mais aussi dans les multiples approches critiques employées tout au long de l’ouvrage.’ — Jean-Alexandre Perras, H-France 14, December 2014, 199

Published March 2013

Shandean Humour in English and German Literature and Philosophy
Edited by Klaus Vieweg, James Vigus and Kathleen M. Wheeler
Legenda (General Series)


Published May 2013

Method and Variation: Narrative in Early Modern French Thought
Edited by Emma Gilby and Paul White
Legenda (General Series)

  • ‘Overall, this is an engaging volume that usefully emphasizes the narrative methods and less scientific genres which underlie early modern French thought and its philosophical fictions.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.2, April 2014, 230-31
  • ‘This timely and important volume addresses the role of narration in revealing early modern French belief patterns... In demonstrating the range of ways in which early modern authors reconfigure and renegotiate narrative’s relationship to thought, argument, and proof, the contributors to this volume together add critical understanding to the complex articulation of fable, history, and argument in the early modern period.’ — Allison Stedman, French Studies 68.4, October 2014, 542-43