Full Product Details
Author: Max Saunders (Director of the Arts and Humanities Research Institute and Professor of English and Co-Director at the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King's College London.)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.80cm
, Height: 2.90cm
, Length: 23.30cm
Weight: 0.814kg
ISBN: 9780199657698
ISBN 10: 0199657696
Pages: 576
Publication Date: 21 March 2013
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
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Reviews
wide-ranging and consequential new account of British literature from 1870 to 1930 ... In modernism, as Saunders demonstrates in impressive detail, we may find an astonishing variety of experimental interactions between biography, autobiography, fiction, and criticism ... With this vast body of evidence, quoted generously and treated expertly, Saunders makes a compelling case for reading modernism as a discourse of im/personality. [One of] two exceedingly good books - stimulating in their arguments, rich in attention to literary and scholarly detail, and engagingly written. * Adam Parkes, Modern Fiction Studies * compendious in the best sense of the term... Saunders's knowledge of, and ability to critique with extraordinary critical sensitivity, the wide swathes of European literature is remarkable. Even more impressive is his handling of the intricate filaments which bind these texts together, which make them constantly mutually allusive. This makes for a constant fascination... It is a measure of the depth of thinking in this book that the complexities of autobiographical modes and the relevance of the category of impressionism, while compelling in themselves, tend to recede and to be replaced by larger questions. Who am I when I write? Who am I when I read? What is it like to be 'carried away' by a book?... These are questions which, as Saunders delicately puts it, have been raised in one form or another by de Man, Hartman, Derrida; but here they receive a rare depth and range of articulation which puts flesh on the bones of abstract argument * David Punter, Modern * A breathtakingly comprehensive study... Self Impression is an important book that will inspire further work on life-writing in the modern period... Recent publications provide other examples of books that call out for the application of Saunders's approach. The first volume of the complete and authoritative edition of the Autobiography of Mark Twain has just been published... Once again, we are in the realm of autobiografiction that Saunders has so brilliantly mapped out. * English Literature in Transition * Saunders' mode of presentation is very precise and sharp... a very important book for the discussion of the relationship between Modernism and Life-Writing. * Yata Keiji, Virginia Woolf Review * Saunders can rearrange the familiar landmarks of modernist prehistory to fit an entire tradition of imaginary autobiography that has been occluded or marginalised by the grand narrative of modernisms impersonality... its new readings of well-known authors and works are dazzling; its new scholarship on unknown or little-known authors and works is fascinating. It revitalises the old literary-historical category of the transition (that is, from Victorian to modern, 1880-1920) * Australian Book Review * a remarkable book, in its length, its historical range (Pater to Byatt) and its fluid genre crossings... Saunders explores the relationship of autobiography to fiction in general, the relationship of the synthetic category 'autobiografiction' to modernism, and by so doing gives us an unusually unified account of modernism... The sheer weight of research and knowledge is astonishing and lightly, even conversationally, worn; Saunders seems to have read every fiction, auto-fiction and pseudo-fiction from the last 150 years... Too many excellent features of this magisterial book can be mentioned only in passing * Review of English Studies * very wide-ranging and intellectually stimulating ... Conspicuous in its originality ... an outstanding contribution * The Pater Newsletter * Review from previous edition It is likely to become a major critical resource, not just for research on early twentieth-century life-writing, but also as part of the ongoing revision of the whole century's literary history. * Bharat Tandon, Times Literary Supplement * Review from previous edition Saunders's account ... is the most important recent contribution to the genealogy of modern literature ... The paradoxy of autobiografiction never disorients him; rather, it inspires plentiful pithy wisdom in a book that seems to end every paragraph aphoristically. Theory and history, history and form get their due recognition, and the book as a whole is an apt and exciting tribute to its subject, capable of everything necessary to prove that life-writing has meant everything to literary modernity. * Jesse Matz, Modern Language Quarterly *
Review from previous edition Saunders's account ... is the most important recent contribution to the genealogy of modern literature ... The paradoxy of autobiografiction never disorients him; rather, it inspires plentiful pithy wisdom in a book that seems to end every paragraph aphoristically. Theory and history, history and form get their due recognition, and the book as a whole is an apt and exciting tribute to its subject, capable of everything necessary to prove that life-writing has meant everything to literary modernity. Jesse Matz, Modern Language Quarterly Review from previous edition It is likely to become a major critical resource, not just for research on early twentieth-century life-writing, but also as part of the ongoing revision of the whole century's literary history. Bharat Tandon, Times Literary Supplement very wide-ranging and intellectually stimulating ... Conspicuous in its originality ... an outstanding contribution The Pater Newsletter a remarkable book, in its length, its historical range (Pater to Byatt) and its fluid genre crossings... Saunders explores the relationship of autobiography to fiction in general, the relationship of the synthetic category 'autobiografiction' to modernism, and by so doing gives us an unusually unified account of modernism... The sheer weight of research and knowledge is astonishing and lightly, even conversationally, worn; Saunders seems to have read every fiction, auto-fiction and pseudo-fiction from the last 150 years... Too many excellent features of this magisterial book can be mentioned only in passing Review of English Studies Saunders can rearrange the familiar landmarks of modernist prehistory to fit an entire tradition of imaginary autobiography that has been occluded or marginalised by the grand narrative of modernisms impersonality... its new readings of well-known authors and works are dazzling; its new scholarship on unknown or little-known authors and works is fascinating. It revitalises the old literary-historical category of the transition (that is, from Victorian to modern, 1880-1920) Australian Book Review Saunders' mode of presentation is very precise and sharp... a very important book for the discussion of the relationship between Modernism and Life-Writing. Yata Keiji, Virginia Woolf Review A breathtakingly comprehensive study... Self Impression is an important book that will inspire further work on life-writing in the modern period... Recent publications provide other examples of books that call out for the application of Saunders's approach. The first volume of the complete and authoritative edition of the Autobiography of Mark Twain has just been published... Once again, we are in the realm of autobiografiction that Saunders has so brilliantly mapped out. English Literature in Transition compendious in the best sense of the term... Saunders's knowledge of, and ability to critique with extraordinary critical sensitivity, the wide swathes of European literature is remarkable. Even more impressive is his handling of the intricate filaments which bind these texts together, which make them constantly mutually allusive. This makes for a constant fascination... It is a measure of the depth of thinking in this book that the complexities of autobiographical modes and the relevance of the category of impressionism, while compelling in themselves, tend to recede and to be replaced by larger questions. Who am I when I write? Who am I when I read? What is it like to be 'carried away' by a book?... These are questions which, as Saunders delicately puts it, have been raised in one form or another by de Man, Hartman, Derrida; but here they receive a rare depth and range of articulation which puts flesh on the bones of abstract argument David Punter, Modern wide-ranging and consequential new account of British literature from 1870 to 1930 ... In modernism, as Saunders demonstrates in impressive detail, we may find an astonishing variety of experimental interactions between biography, autobiography, fiction, and criticism ... With this vast body of evidence, quoted generously and treated expertly, Saunders makes a compelling case for reading modernism as a discourse of im/personality. [One of] two exceedingly good books - stimulating in their arguments, rich in attention to literary and scholarly detail, and engagingly written. Adam Parkes, Modern Fiction Studies
Author Information
Max Saunders is Director of the Arts and Humanities Research Institute and Professor of English and Co-Director at the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King's College London.
