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)
Pessoa in an Intertextual Web: Influence and Innovation
Edited by David G. Frier
Legenda (General Series) •30 January 2012
- ‘As its title suggests, [the book] provides Pessoan scholars and the general reader with a lot of thematic variety and in-depth insights. Some of the papers bring fresh perspectives on topics that had been critically broached before, but are here seen from enriching perspectives. Other papers provide refreshingly new arguments. These are two of the many reasons why one would wish to recommend this volume, both to the specialist and to the student who is starting out on the path to his or her own Pessoa.’ — Francisco Cota Fagundes, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 110.4, September 2013, 1058-59
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
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
Gravity and Grace: Essays for Roger Pearson
Edited by Charlie Louth and Patrick McGuinness
Legenda (General Series) •25 February 2019
- ‘A core series of contributions offers a remarkably sustained and rich reflection on the interplay between the aesthetic and ethical notions of gravity and grace.’ — Scott M. Powers, H-France 20, June 2020, no. 92
- ‘Works of art function by allowing something to happen, rather than by making something happen, and are nothing without our active participation. The prescriptive weightiness of words in practical discourse is not what poetry, especially, puts in play. That certainly makes this book a fitting tribute to the wonderful work of Roger Pearson, whose own writing is never heavy, never pedantic, but always invites and inspires the reader to continue thinking beyond the page.’ — Peter Dayan, Modern Language Review 116.1, 2020, 188-89 (full text online)
From the Enlightenment to Modernism: Three Centuries of German Literature
Edited by Carolin Duttlinger, Kevin Hilliard, and Charlie Louth
Legenda (General Series) •20 December 2021
A Captive of the Dawn: The Life and Work of Peretz Markish (1895-1952)
Edited by Joseph Sherman, Gennady Estraikh, Jordan Finkin and David Shneer
Studies In Yiddish 9•25 March 2011
- ‘This volume is not only the best study of Markish’s career available in English — it is the only one. And yet, one could not hope for a better treatment of its worthy subject... Given Markish’s signiicance to the development of Yiddish literature in Poland as well as the Soviet Union, there is no doubt that any scholar of Yiddish will consult these essays frequently and gratefully.’ — Marc Caplan, Slavonic and East European Review 92.2, April 2014, 321-23 (full text online)
Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister
Edited by Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 12•23 April 2014
- ‘I’ve often hoped that a collection would come out that would help me grapple with this mysterious individual and his extraordinary yet often enigmatic writings, and so I was pleased to read this excellent new collection... All of the chapters in this book offer important new insights into Der Nister the man and the artist.’ — Leah Garrett, Slavic Review 74.2, Summer 2015, 423-24
- ‘A very welcome addition to the scarce literature on Soviet Yiddish writer Pinkhas Kahanovitsh (1884–1950)... Fifteen years prior to his arrest, Der Nister wrote that 'history will judge us by our construction work: how our regime was built, on what kind of underlying moral foundations, and in what kind of political and cultural-customary forms it was shaped'. For an author who wished to remain 'hidden' on the sidelines of political life, the wide range of articles exhibited in this collection attest to how the author himself would have wanted his literary 'construction work' to be judged.’ — Naya Lekht, Slavic and East European Journal 59.2, Summer 2015, 325-27
Women, Men and Books: Issues of Gender in Yiddish Discourse
Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 16•30 December 2019
- ‘The book presents the most recent research on the subject of gender in Yiddish literature and culture and paints a far more complex picture of gender roles in Eastern European Jewish life than is portrayed in traditional sources... As gender and sexuality are increasingly being understood as fluid, rather than determined categories, this kind of research is extremely significant for those of us who still speak, write and create in Yiddish, and want to hold on to it as a living language, capable of expressing all of our experiences.’ — Annabel Cohen, Forward 23 November 2020