Recent Reviews

Legenda books are regularly reviewed in scholarly journals across the world, and sometimes also in literary papers such as the Times Literary Supplement. From time to time, our books also appear in Europe’s newspapers, from The Independent and the Daily Telegraph to El Imparcial and Gazeta Shqiptare. The following excerpts are from the 20 most recently received reviews:

Proust Writing Photography: Fixing the Fugitive in À la recherche du temps perdu — Áine Larkin: ‘Á́ine Larkin makes an excellent contribution to this already well established field of study with this systematic analysis of the manifold ways in which Proust appropriates photography for both thematic and stylistic purposes.’ — Marion Schmid, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (September 2012), 514-16
Women, Genre and Circumstance: Essays in Memory of Elizabeth Fallaize — Edited by Margaret Atack, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight and Judith Still: ‘A powerful and moving reminder of the lineaments and achievements of [Elizabeth Fallaize’s] scholarly work. Equally, as critical explorations of a variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century narrative artefacts and practices, [these essays] are a pleasure to read, combining to create a collection that is an academic delight and would certainly have delighted the woman to whom it is dedicated.’ — Alex Hughes, French Studies 67.2 (April 2013), 294-95
Decolonizing Modernism: James Joyce and the Development of Spanish American Fiction — José Luis Venegas: ‘Must be greeted as a new study that further enriches previous critical revisions of monolithic views of ‘canonical’ modernism... By relocating Joyce as a ‘peripheral’ modernist writer in the literary map of Latin America, Decolonizing Modernism offers an innovative and alternative reinterpretation of both European and Spanish-American literary histories that eschews the restrictions of national boundaries and canonical readings and opens untrodden paths for the emergence of (even) more revisionary studies of modernism in the future.’ — M. Teresa Caneda Cabrera, James Joyce Quarterly 48.4 (2011), 772-75
Regarding Lost Time: Photography, Identity, and Affect in Proust, Benjamin, and Barthes — Katja Haustein: ‘Katja Haustein’s monograph charts new territory in the expanding study of autobiographical writing in the light of photography... this volume will no doubt be of great benefit to specialists of these three seminal authors, as well as to those working in comparative studies.’ — Kathrin Yacavone, French Studies 67.2 (April 2013), 271-72
Dante in Oxford: The Paget Toynbee Lectures — Edited by Tristan Kay, Martin McLaughlin and Michelangelo Zaccarello: ‘A welcome addition to the ocean of Dante studies.’ — John A. Scott, Modern Language Review 108.2 (April 2013), 648-50
In the Light of Contradiction: Desire in the Poetry of Federico García Lorca — Roberta Ann Quance: ‘We have, for the first time in Lorca studies, an analysis of the three books [Suites, Canciones, and Poema del cante jondo] side by side. Moreover, this is the first time that Poema del cante jondo has been studied in a monograph in conjunction with the Suites... This is a sophisticated monograph yet also an entertaining one. It should compel Hispanists to observe Federico García Lorca’s poetry in a new and exciting perspective.’ — Laura Burgos-Lejonagoitia, Modern Language Review 108.2 (April 2013), 654-56
Decolonizing Modernism: James Joyce and the Development of Spanish American Fiction — José Luis Venegas: ‘In this book, José Luis Venegas takes existing debates on James Joyce’s influence on modern Spanish American fiction decisively further... Thanks to its balanced focus on theory, criticism and literary analysis, the book is comprehensive in its approach yet highly readable. With quotations given in both English and Spanish, this comparative study is a valuable research tool not only for Hispanists but also for critics of English literature working on Joyce.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies Forthcoming
Desire in Dante and the Middle Ages — Edited by Manuele Gragnolati, Tristan Kay, Elena Lombardi and Francesca Southerden: ‘As well as offering several original contributions on this fundamental aspect of Dante’s work, it seeks to situate the Florentine writer more effectively within the broader spectrum of medieval culture and to establish greater intellectual exchange between Dante scholars and those from other disciplines.’ — unsigned notice, Studi Medievali 53.2 (2012), 1029-30
Sex in Imagined Spaces: Gender and Utopia from More to Bloch — Caitríona Ní Dhúill: ‘This excellent monograph tackles the concept of utopia by repositioning it within the fields of literature and creative practice examined through the lens of the gendered body.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies Forthcoming
Saturn’s Moons: W. G. Sebald — A Handbook — Edited by Jo Catling and Richard Hibbitt: ‘Besides essays in which Michael Hulse and Anthea Bell address the subject of translating Sebald’s work and of collaborations between author and translator, readers of this journal should be intrigued by a hitherto unpublished interview conducted by Jon Cook... [Sebald] reflects on his decision to write in German rather than English.’ — Iain Galbraith, Translation and Literature 22.1 (Spring 2013), 137-42
Ugo Foscolo and English Culture — Sandra Parmegiani: ‘A well written and highly informative account of Foscolo’s career... Most readers of The Shandean will think of Foscolo predominantly as the translator of Sterne: it is fascinating to read of his attempts to make a literary career in London in the last decade of his life where, encouraged by John Cam Hobhouse, he crosses paths (and often swords) with such luminaries as Wordsworth, Byron, Samuel Rogers, Thomas Moore, John Murray, and Sir Walter Scott.’ — W. G. Day, The Shandean 167-72
Desire in Dante and the Middle Ages — Edited by Manuele Gragnolati, Tristan Kay, Elena Lombardi and Francesca Southerden: ‘A series of Dante symposia organized by Manuele Gragnolati and colleagues over the past few years have brought youthful vitality to an ancient field... There is much careful scholarship and thoughtful reading in this book, which should attract Dante and medieval studies scholars alike, particularly those interested in contemporary critical approaches to medieval texts.’ — Gary Cestaro, Renaissance Quarterly 66.1 (Spring 2013), 323-24
Sex in Imagined Spaces: Gender and Utopia from More to Bloch — Caitríona Ní Dhúill: ‘Ni Dhúill’s study shines a bright light on the hitherto neglected importance of sex and gender questions in utopian societies. Sex In Imagined Spaces is a cogently argued, beautifully written, and highly original contribution to knowledge in utopia studies and beyond; it not only mobilizes important wider cultural developments for the analysis of literary texts, but also gives a brilliant gender-theoretical spin to the double function of utopian texts as vision and critique.’ — Anna Katharina Schaffner, Germanistik in Ireland 7 (2013), 228-30
Alienation and Theatricality: Diderot after Brecht — Phoebe von Held: ‘[Held’s] general principle is surprisingly simple and compelling: While the ‘self-alienating artifice’ of Diderot’s calculating actor succeeds for the most part at immedsing the audience to identification and illusion, there are moments at which it suddenly comes to the fore... Jolted by this ‘sudden emergence of alienation’, the spectator is now ‘faced with her own involvement in the operation of delusion’.’ — Florian Nikolas Becker, Brecht Yearbook 37 (2012), 253-58
Imagining Jewish Art: Encounters with the Masters in Chagall, Guston, and Kitaj — Aaron Rosen: ‘The book is at its strongest when it employs formal comparisons to demonstrate the close visual conversations with European ‘Masters’ of religious art (such as Grü̈newald, Uccello and della Francesca) that Chagall, Guston and Kitaj each engage in.’ — Alana M. Vincent, Literature and Theology 27.1 (March 2013), 116
The Picture as Spectre in Diderot, Proust, and Deleuze — Thomas Baldwin: ‘Current critical debates on both spectrality and ekphrastic poetics are greatly enriched by Thomas Baldwin’s tightly woven and theoretically intricate study.’ — Margaret Topping, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 125
Proust Writing Photography: Fixing the Fugitive in À la recherche du temps perdu — Áine Larkin: ‘Throughout the volume, Larkin’s close readings often provide fresh insights by situating themselves at a tangent to existing interpretations. In this way they form an individual trajectory, turning the study into a valuable source of orientation and stimulation for experts and newcomers to the field alike.’ — Katja Haustein, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 115-16
Women, Genre and Circumstance: Essays in Memory of Elizabeth Fallaize — Edited by Margaret Atack, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight and Judith Still: ‘Like the woman to whom it pays tribute, and whose haunting gaze looks out at us from its cover, this volume of essays combines intellectual rigour with humanity, serious purpose with humour, depth of insight with lightness of touch.’ — Julia Waters, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (November 2012), 505-06
Paul Celan’s Encounters with Surrealism: Trauma, Translation and Shared Poetic Space — Charlotte Ryland: ‘If ever there were a case for bilingual editions, then, as Ryland so persuasively shows us, Celan’s translations of surrealist poetry make it, through their uncanny engagements with the originals in times that, for Celan, became ever darker... With Ryland’s study, we can return to that particular encounter with a renewed sense of the richness not only of Celan’s own poetry, but also of his activities as a translator of the highest order.’ — Shane Weller, Translation and Literature 21.3 (November 2012), 430-35
German Women’s Writing of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Future Directions in Feminist Criticism — Edited by Helen Fronius and Anna Richards: ‘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


		News Titles Just Out Just Announced Reviews Just In Mailing List Information About Us Series Editors Proposals Review Copies Catalogue New Titles Forthcoming All Titles Subjects Authors Languages Central Europe English French German Modern Greek Italian Portuguese Russian Spanish Yiddish Genres Art Children’s Criticism Drama Fiction Film History Letters Life-Writing Linguistics Music Philosophy Poetry Satire Theology Travel Writing Translation Periods Classics Medieval Renaissance 1650-1850 Modern Contemporary		Legenda books are regularly reviewed in scholarly journals across the world, and sometimes also in literary papers such as the Times Literary Supplement. From time to time, our books also appear in Europe’s newspapers, from The Independent and the Daily Telegraph to El Imparcial and Gazeta Shqiptare. The following excerpts are from the 20 most recently received reviews: Proust Writing Photography: Fixing the Fugitive in À la recherche du temps perdu — Áine Larkin: ‘Á́ine Larkin makes an excellent contribution to this already well established field of study with this systematic analysis of the manifold ways in which Proust appropriates photography for both thematic and stylistic purposes.’ — Marion Schmid, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (September 2012), 514-16 Women, Genre and Circumstance: Essays in Memory of Elizabeth Fallaize — Edited by Margaret Atack, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight and Judith Still: ‘A powerful and moving reminder of the lineaments and achievements of [Elizabeth Fallaize’s] scholarly work. Equally, as critical explorations of a variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century narrative artefacts and practices, [these essays] are a pleasure to read, combining to create a collection that is an academic delight and would certainly have delighted the woman to whom it is dedicated.’ — Alex Hughes, French Studies 67.2 (April 2013), 294-95 Decolonizing Modernism: James Joyce and the Development of Spanish American Fiction — José Luis Venegas: ‘Must be greeted as a new study that further enriches previous critical revisions of monolithic views of ‘canonical’ modernism... By relocating Joyce as a ‘peripheral’ modernist writer in the literary map of Latin America, Decolonizing Modernism offers an innovative and alternative reinterpretation of both European and Spanish-American literary histories that eschews the restrictions of national boundaries and canonical readings and opens untrodden paths for the emergence of (even) more revisionary studies of modernism in the future.’ — M. Teresa Caneda Cabrera, James Joyce Quarterly 48.4 (2011), 772-75 Regarding Lost Time: Photography, Identity, and Affect in Proust, Benjamin, and Barthes — Katja Haustein: ‘Katja Haustein’s monograph charts new territory in the expanding study of autobiographical writing in the light of photography... this volume will no doubt be of great benefit to specialists of these three seminal authors, as well as to those working in comparative studies.’ — Kathrin Yacavone, French Studies 67.2 (April 2013), 271-72 Dante in Oxford: The Paget Toynbee Lectures — Edited by Tristan Kay, Martin McLaughlin and Michelangelo Zaccarello: ‘A welcome addition to the ocean of Dante studies.’ — John A. Scott, Modern Language Review 108.2 (April 2013), 648-50 In the Light of Contradiction: Desire in the Poetry of Federico García Lorca — Roberta Ann Quance: ‘We have, for the first time in Lorca studies, an analysis of the three books [Suites, Canciones, and Poema del cante jondo] side by side. Moreover, this is the first time that Poema del cante jondo has been studied in a monograph in conjunction with the Suites... This is a sophisticated monograph yet also an entertaining one. It should compel Hispanists to observe Federico García Lorca’s poetry in a new and exciting perspective.’ — Laura Burgos-Lejonagoitia, Modern Language Review 108.2 (April 2013), 654-56 Decolonizing Modernism: James Joyce and the Development of Spanish American Fiction — José Luis Venegas: ‘In this book, José Luis Venegas takes existing debates on James Joyce’s influence on modern Spanish American fiction decisively further... Thanks to its balanced focus on theory, criticism and literary analysis, the book is comprehensive in its approach yet highly readable. With quotations given in both English and Spanish, this comparative study is a valuable research tool not only for Hispanists but also for critics of English literature working on Joyce.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies Forthcoming Desire in Dante and the Middle Ages — Edited by Manuele Gragnolati, Tristan Kay, Elena Lombardi and Francesca Southerden: ‘As well as offering several original contributions on this fundamental aspect of Dante’s work, it seeks to situate the Florentine writer more effectively within the broader spectrum of medieval culture and to establish greater intellectual exchange between Dante scholars and those from other disciplines.’ — unsigned notice, Studi Medievali 53.2 (2012), 1029-30 Sex in Imagined Spaces: Gender and Utopia from More to Bloch — Caitríona Ní Dhúill: ‘This excellent monograph tackles the concept of utopia by repositioning it within the fields of literature and creative practice examined through the lens of the gendered body.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies Forthcoming Saturn’s Moons: W. G. Sebald — A Handbook — Edited by Jo Catling and Richard Hibbitt: ‘Besides essays in which Michael Hulse and Anthea Bell address the subject of translating Sebald’s work and of collaborations between author and translator, readers of this journal should be intrigued by a hitherto unpublished interview conducted by Jon Cook... [Sebald] reflects on his decision to write in German rather than English.’ — Iain Galbraith, Translation and Literature 22.1 (Spring 2013), 137-42 Ugo Foscolo and English Culture — Sandra Parmegiani: ‘A well written and highly informative account of Foscolo’s career... Most readers of The Shandean will think of Foscolo predominantly as the translator of Sterne: it is fascinating to read of his attempts to make a literary career in London in the last decade of his life where, encouraged by John Cam Hobhouse, he crosses paths (and often swords) with such luminaries as Wordsworth, Byron, Samuel Rogers, Thomas Moore, John Murray, and Sir Walter Scott.’ — W. G. Day, The Shandean 167-72 Desire in Dante and the Middle Ages — Edited by Manuele Gragnolati, Tristan Kay, Elena Lombardi and Francesca Southerden: ‘A series of Dante symposia organized by Manuele Gragnolati and colleagues over the past few years have brought youthful vitality to an ancient field... There is much careful scholarship and thoughtful reading in this book, which should attract Dante and medieval studies scholars alike, particularly those interested in contemporary critical approaches to medieval texts.’ — Gary Cestaro, Renaissance Quarterly 66.1 (Spring 2013), 323-24 Sex in Imagined Spaces: Gender and Utopia from More to Bloch — Caitríona Ní Dhúill: ‘Ni Dhúill’s study shines a bright light on the hitherto neglected importance of sex and gender questions in utopian societies. Sex In Imagined Spaces is a cogently argued, beautifully written, and highly original contribution to knowledge in utopia studies and beyond; it not only mobilizes important wider cultural developments for the analysis of literary texts, but also gives a brilliant gender-theoretical spin to the double function of utopian texts as vision and critique.’ — Anna Katharina Schaffner, Germanistik in Ireland 7 (2013), 228-30 Alienation and Theatricality: Diderot after Brecht — Phoebe von Held: ‘[Held’s] general principle is surprisingly simple and compelling: While the ‘self-alienating artifice’ of Diderot’s calculating actor succeeds for the most part at immedsing the audience to identification and illusion, there are moments at which it suddenly comes to the fore... Jolted by this ‘sudden emergence of alienation’, the spectator is now ‘faced with her own involvement in the operation of delusion’.’ — Florian Nikolas Becker, Brecht Yearbook 37 (2012), 253-58 Imagining Jewish Art: Encounters with the Masters in Chagall, Guston, and Kitaj — Aaron Rosen: ‘The book is at its strongest when it employs formal comparisons to demonstrate the close visual conversations with European ‘Masters’ of religious art (such as Grü̈newald, Uccello and della Francesca) that Chagall, Guston and Kitaj each engage in.’ — Alana M. Vincent, Literature and Theology 27.1 (March 2013), 116 The Picture as Spectre in Diderot, Proust, and Deleuze — Thomas Baldwin: ‘Current critical debates on both spectrality and ekphrastic poetics are greatly enriched by Thomas Baldwin’s tightly woven and theoretically intricate study.’ — Margaret Topping, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 125 Proust Writing Photography: Fixing the Fugitive in À la recherche du temps perdu — Áine Larkin: ‘Throughout the volume, Larkin’s close readings often provide fresh insights by situating themselves at a tangent to existing interpretations. In this way they form an individual trajectory, turning the study into a valuable source of orientation and stimulation for experts and newcomers to the field alike.’ — Katja Haustein, French Studies 67.1 (January 2013), 115-16 Women, Genre and Circumstance: Essays in Memory of Elizabeth Fallaize — Edited by Margaret Atack, Diana Holmes, Diana Knight and Judith Still: ‘Like the woman to whom it pays tribute, and whose haunting gaze looks out at us from its cover, this volume of essays combines intellectual rigour with humanity, serious purpose with humour, depth of insight with lightness of touch.’ — Julia Waters, Modern and Contemporary France 20.4 (November 2012), 505-06 Paul Celan’s Encounters with Surrealism: Trauma, Translation and Shared Poetic Space — Charlotte Ryland: ‘If ever there were a case for bilingual editions, then, as Ryland so persuasively shows us, Celan’s translations of surrealist poetry make it, through their uncanny engagements with the originals in times that, for Celan, became ever darker... With Ryland’s study, we can return to that particular encounter with a renewed sense of the richness not only of Celan’s own poetry, but also of his activities as a translator of the highest order.’ — Shane Weller, Translation and Literature 21.3 (November 2012), 430-35 German Women’s Writing of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Future Directions in Feminist Criticism — Edited by Helen Fronius and Anna Richards: ‘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