Out of Place

Reviews / Votes

Foremost among the study's many strengths is how Lyon brings together diverse theories and historical data with literary readings to establish the complexity of late realist prose works and the issues with which they are in dialogue ... Lyon's study represents a valuable contribution to scholarship on German realism and stands to enrich conversations on space and place. * Goethe Yearbook * Out of Place engages the recent 'spatial turn' in literary and cultural studies and brings it to bear on the subject-matter of German realist prose fiction. This is an elegantly written, well organized and cogently argued study, firmly situated in a sophisticated theoretical framework, a thorough historical ground, and insightful nuanced readings of its primary texts. It will make an original and significant contribution to the field of nineteenth-century German Studies. On the whole, the book provides excellent insight not only into the development of the phenomenon of place but also to late realism more generally. It is a strong contribution to the vein of criticism that sees in late realism a response to the realities of modernity, rather than a retreat from them. * Pacific Coast Philology * Lyon's rigorous but engagingly written book makes a significant contribution to scholarship in re-assessing 19th-century German Realism as a pioneering literary movement anticipating 20th-century modernism and philosophical debates about place and space in society. * Monatshefte *