CI – SHARP News

Magda Romanska and Alan Ackerman (eds.), Reader in Comedy. An Anthology of Theory and Criticism

Published by CI on March 4, 2019

Magda Romanska and Alan Ackerman (eds.), Reader in Comedy. An Anthology of Theory and Criticism. London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017. xl, 375 p. 108 ill. ISBN 9781474247887. £ 95.00 (hardcover). Magda Romanska and Alan Ackerman’s Reader in Comedy is a well-thought-out anthology that embarks on a challenging enterprise: to provide an overview of theories related to comedy, broadly conceived, starting with the ancient Greek comedy and ending with the present-day sitcoms, vaudeville performances, slapstick comedy, and Internet humor. While comedy…

Stephan Füssel, ed. Gutenberg-Jahrbuch. No. 93 (2018)

Published by CI on October 22, 2018

Stephan Füssel, ed. Gutenberg-Jahrbuch. No. 93 (2018). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018. 281 p. ISBN 9783447110563. EUR 93.00. This issue also serves as a celebration of the five hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Gutenberg’s death. Appropriately the first four contributions deal with early printed editions of the Bible. In the first of his two pieces Eric Marshall White discusses the neglect into which knowledge of Gutenberg’s achievement fell, before he outlines its rediscovery in eighteenth-century Germany and France. He then tabulates…

Theo Rosendorf. The Typographic Desk Reference

Published by CI on August 10, 2018

Theo Rosendorf. The Typographic Desk Reference. 2^nded. Forward by Erik Spiekermann. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2016. 350p. ISBN 9781584563119. $45.00 (hardcover); $25.00 (paperback).

This extensive desk reference is divided into six parts: Terms; Glyphs; Anatomy & Form; Classification & Specimens; Further Reading; and Index. Originally published in 2009, the new edition is greatly expanded to include updated terminology for type specimens, more glyphs, and an extensive index, itself a sixth of the physical book.

Charles V. Reed. Royal Tourists, Colonial Subjects and the Making of a British World, 1860-1911

Published by CI on August 10, 2018

Charles V. Reed. Royal Tourists, Colonial Subjects and the Making of a British World, 1860-1911. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016. 221p. ISBN 9780719097010. £70.00 (hardcover).

If you enjoyed Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet or saw the PBS TV version called Jewel in the Crown, this book gives you the opportunity to learn more about what life in British India, South Africa, and New Zealand was really like for colonial subjects in the years prior – to be specific, from 1860 to 1911.

Timothy R. Jackson, ed. Frozen in Time: The Fagel Collection in the Library of Trinity College Dublin

Published by CI on August 10, 2018

Timothy R. Jackson, ed. Frozen in Time: The Fagel Collection in the Library of Trinity College Dublin. Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2016. 262p., ill. ISBN 9781843516750. €50.00 (hardcover).

Frozen in Time is the first book-length study devoted to the Fagel Collection, shining light on the history and the political interests of the Fagel family as well as the materials that their members collected through time and which informed their governing decisions over the Netherlands from 1672 through the French Revolution. Historians of early modern Europe, of the book, of libraries, and of reading practices will find many topics of interest and new areas of study to explore as they read about the varied and extensive contents of the Fagel family collections.

Alexander S. Wilkinson and Alejandra Ulla Lorenzo, eds. Iberian Books Volumes II & III. Books Published in Spain, Portugal and the New World or Elsewhere in Spanish or Portuguese between 1601 and 1650

Published by CI on June 24, 2018

Alexander S. Wilkinson and Alejandra Ulla Lorenzo, eds. Iberian Books Volumes II & III. Books Published in Spain, Portugal and the New World or Elsewhere in Spanish or Portuguese between 1601 and 1650 / Libros Ibéricos Volúmenes II y III: Libros publicados en España, Portugal y el Nuevo Mundo o impresos en otros lugares en español o portugués entre 1601 y 1650. Vol. 1: A-E; Vol. 2: F-Z. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Vol. 1: xcii, 1246p., ill.; Vol. 2: xliv, 2510p., ill. ISBN 9789004292291. €450.00.

This two-volume set follows the first repertoire in the series compiled by Alexander S. Wilkinson, titled Iberian Books: Books Published in Spanish or Portuguese or on the Iberian Peninsula before 1601 (Leiden: Brill, 2010). All three volumes are bilingual (English-Spanish) and contain bibliographies that order the publications pertaining to the period in question alphabetically by author’s surname.

Cynthia Ellen Roman, ed. Hogarth’s Legacy

Published by CI on June 24, 2018

Cynthia Ellen Roman, ed. Hogarth’s Legacy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016. xl, 259p., 108 ill. ISBN 9780300215618. US$ 60.00 (hardcover).

Cynthia Ellen Roman’s edition of collected essays on the legacy of the English engraver, printmaker, and painter William Hogarth (1697-1764) is a timely tribute to one of the most iconic figures of the eighteenth-century visual satire, 250 years after the artist’s death. The collection focuses for the first time on Hogarth’s afterlife in Britain and abroad by bringing together eight contributions by a multidisciplinary team of scholars.

Stephan Füssel, ed. Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, no. 92

Published by CI on January 8, 2018

Stephan Füssel, ed. Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, no. 92. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017. 288 p. ISBN 9783447108324. EUR 75.00.

Frustrating as the delayed arrival of this volume was, it had the effect of whetting my appetite all the more to read the contents. I will first discuss the contributions which caught my eye as closest to my own interests. A regular contributor, Marvin J. Heller, continues his survey of Hebrew printing in early modern Europe by focusing on the town of Verona, which had a thriving Jewish community, amounting to some nine hundred at the end of the eighteenth century. A feature of Jewish life there was the sporadic printing of Hebrew books from the late sixteenth to the mid seventeenth century, first by Francesco dalle Donne who issued a small number of Hebrew and Yiddish books from 1592 to 1595, and then by Francesco de’ Rossi between 1645 to 1652.

Lia Markey. Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence

Published by CI on December 4, 2017

Lia Markey. Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016. xvii, 241 p., ill. ISBN 9780271071152. $79.95 (hardcover).

The reader, upon opening this book, is greeted by a stunning array of 110 colour and black-and-white images, including many details, which exhibit the depth and breadth of primarily Florentine representations of the Americas during the first few decades of Euro-American contact. Organized into a series a nine case studies, each of which focuses on specific works of art and material culture that formed part of the collections created for or viewed by Cosimo de’ Medici’s sons (specifically from the onset of the ruler’s reign in 1537 to the end of his son’s reign in 1609), the book is framed by a brief introduction. The book thusly not only explores these artifacts originating from or made to represent the Americas, but it also meditates on the practices of collecting as well as the ways through which collections are encountered in this same cultural and historical moment.

Gerhard Holzer, Valerie Newby, Petra Svatek, and Georg Zotti, eds. A World of Innovation: Cartography in the Time of Gerhard Mercator

Published by CI on December 4, 2017

Gerhard Holzer, Valerie Newby, Petra Svatek, and Georg Zotti, eds. A World of Innovation: Cartography in the Time of Gerhard Mercator. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. xvii, 261 p., ill. ISBN 9781443871532. £47.99 (hardcover).

The scholarship contained in this book was convened by the editors at a conference held in Vienna in 2012 in celebration of the 500^th anniversary of Gerhard Mercator’s date of birth. The thirteen chapters of this edited collection are spread over four thematic sections, the most substantial of which houses five chapters that examine the Hapsburg Empire in light of this cartographer’s lifespan.

Author: CI