Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan
Book cover

The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the City

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Editors:
  1. Jeremy Tambling

    1. London, United Kingdom

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Represents the most substantial, comprehensive handbook in literary urban studies
  • Editor is a well-known and widely-respected nineteenth-century scholar who has published extensively on cities and urban studies
  • Appeal to film and cultural studies scholars as well as urban studies scholars, in addition to literary studies

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 229.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 299.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (49 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Prologue: City-Theory and Writing, in Paris and Chicago: Space, Gender, Ethnicity

    • Jeremy Tambling
    Pages 1-22

  4. European Cities

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 89-91
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Cartographing Dublin

      • Daniel Bristow
      Pages 93-109

    3. Medieval and Early Modern Cities: London, Paris, Florence and Amsterdam

      • Jeremy Tambling
      Pages 111-126

    4. Modern London: 1820–2020

      • Jason Finch
      Pages 127-146

    5. Balzac: A Socio-Material Archaeology of Paris

      • Jonathan White
      Pages 147-163

    6. Berlin: Flesh and Stone, Space and Time

      • Ulrike Zitzlsperger
      Pages 165-182

    7. Petersburg on the Threshold

      • Paul Fung
      Pages 183-195

    8. St. Petersburg and Moscow in Twentieth-Century Russian Literature

      • Isobel Palmer
      Pages 197-214

    9. Spain’s Literature of the City

      • Aitor Bikandi-Meijas, Paul Vita
      Pages 215-231

    10. Lisbon: What the Tourist Should Read

      • Daniel Bristow
      Pages 233-243

    11. Vienna

      • Jeremy Tambling
      Pages 245-259

    12. Venice: Impossible City

      • David Spurr
      Pages 261-276

  5. North American Cities

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 277-282
      Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book is about the impact of literature upon cities world-wide, and cities upon literature. It examines why the city matters so much to contemporary critical theory, and why it has inspired so many forms of writing which have attempted to deal with its challenges to think about it and to represent it. Gathering together 40 contributors who look at different modes of writing and film-making in throughout the world, this handbook asks how the modern city has  engendered so much theoretical consideration, and looks at cities and their literature from China to Peru, from New York to Paris, from London to Kinshasa. It looks at some of the ways in which modern cities – whether capitals, shanty-towns, industrial or ‘rust-belt’ – have forced themselves on people’s ways of thinking and writing.

Reviews

“This large compendium explores the importance of writings about a city to how cities become embedded in the popular imagination. … The handbook abounds with examples of themes and locations. … of interest to those who believe that fiction can be as illuminating as nonfiction, and that the way cities have become inscribed in literature shapes and reflects perceptions of these spaces.” (E&U Environment & Urbanization, environmentandurbanization.org, February, 2018)



“The book fundamentally addresses what effect on literature the various great cities around the world have (intrinsically) had. … there is a rich tapestry of depth running throughout this stunning book, that, for anyone remotely interested in literature and/or cities, comes both highly and regally recommended.” (David Marx Book Reviews, davidmarxbookreviews.wordpress.com, November, 2017)

“The relationship between literature and the city is a Gordian knot, that becomes more tangled the more the critic tries to unpick it. Rather than slicing through it, this ambitious collection of essays instead catalogues its dimensions, ranging far beyond the familiar studies of European and Ameriacan cities into Latin America, Africa, and Asia. With essays on Brasília, Lagos, Beiruit, and Tokyo, as well as Lisbon and Vienna, the result is a fascinating, almost encyclopaedic, account of urban literature on a scale that no one else has yet attempted.” (Scott McCracken, Queen Mary University of London, UK)

Editors and Affiliations

  • London, United Kingdom

    Jeremy Tambling

About the editor

Jeremy Tambling has been Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong and at the University of Manchester, UK; and is author of over twenty books on literary and cultural theory, many engaged with cities and urban theory.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the City

  • Editors: Jeremy Tambling

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54911-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-54910-5Published: 27 February 2017

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-54911-2Published: 17 February 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 863

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Literary History, Urban History

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation