The Work of Revision
Despite its sober title, there is nothing dry or dusty aboutHannah Sullivan's fascinating investigation of the work of revision in modernist writing. On the contrary her book often reads like a detective story, as the author brings her formidable learning and literary subtlety to bear on both the details of revision and their theoretical ramifications. Written with clarity and verve, this is a dazzling study that makes a powerful case for the necessity, but also for the pleasures, of genetic and textual criticism. (Maud Ellmann, University of Chicago)Hannah Sullivan'sThe Work of Revisionoffers a groundbreaking account of the theoretical typology of revision in literature and more specifically of the relation between revision and literary structure in modernist literature from Henry James to David Foster Wallace. Consolidating a great deal of recent textual, genetic, and critical study of modern literature, it brings back into the critical conversation priceless materials that too often have been allowed to play a supporting role in twentieth century commentaries. (Ron Bush, University of Oxford)Sullivanhas written a superb book, tracing the fortunes of literary revision from Henry James at the end of the nineteenth century to David Foster Wallace at the beginning of the twenty-first. Although it draws on genetic studies of individual writers, its focus is on the bigger story of shifts in the way literary works have been written, shaped by the changes both in technology and in conceptions of the literary project itself. Original, illuminating, and extremely readable,The Work of Revisionis very timely, as we enter a new phase in the history of literary production; for the first time, we can look back, as Sullivan does, to the era of the typewriter as having an end as well as a beginning. (Derek Attridge, University of York)Like the writers she analyzes,Sullivan'makes it new' in this revisionist history of literary revision. We all know that the high modernists were incessant revisers of their work. What we didn't know, until now, was the centrality of revision not only to the composition process but also to the diverse forms and content that emerge from it. The Work of Revisionoffers both a new critical language and a new history of print culture. We can't see modernism in the same way again. (Gavin Jones, Stanford University)InHannah Sullivan's impressively researched first book, revisions become a 'figure for modernism'--particularly for London-y High Moderns: from Henry James' embroidered sentences to Ezra Pound's minimalist poetics and surgery toThe Waste Land; fromUlysses' volcanic additions to Virginia Woolf's traumatized self-portraits. Hardly is a mark unremarked-upon; even Pound's colon fromIn a Station of the Metrois probed... Sullivan persuasively claims that Modern revising was radical, experimental, visible and self-conscious.(David GewanterTimes Higher Education2013-09-05)Provocative, timely and a welcome contribution to the study of Modernist writing,The Work of Revisiongoes to great lengths to show just how  difficult it can be to elucidate the social life of texts whose use and  meaning remain a work in progress. (William Viney,Times Literary Supplement)[Sullivan] reminds us of the laborious transformations that can occur before and after publication, and the mixed fortunes of those who revise and revise again…Provocative, timely and a welcome contribution to the study of Modernist writing,The Work of Revisiongoes to great lengths to show just how difficult it can be to elucidate the social life of texts whose use and meaning remain a work in progress. (William VineyTimes Literary Supplement2014-04-18)