Anna Vaninskaya is a Professor of Literary and Cultural History at theUniversity of Edinburgh. She is known as aTolkien scholar and has published onWilliam Morris and otherVictorian era and 20th century writers. She has contributed to theWiley-BlackwellA Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien.
She has won the 2011 Choice Outstanding Academic Title award[1] and the 2021Mythopoeic Society's award for Mythopoeic Scholarship.[2]
Anna Vaninskaya grew up in Russia and America before moving to Britain.[3] She studied English literature at theUniversity of Denver, where she gained her bachelor's and master's degrees. She won aMarshall Scholarship to theUniversity of Oxford, where she earned her PhD.[1]
She began her academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at the Cambridge Victorian Studies Group; she was a junior fellow ofKing's College, Cambridge.[1]
Vaninskaya then became a lecturer in English Literature at theUniversity of Edinburgh. Later, she was made a fellow of the Edinburgh Futures Institute, and Professor of Literary and Cultural History at the university.[1] She has written more than 40 book chapters and journal articles on modern literature, including onWilliam Morris,E. R. Eddison,Lord Dunsany,G. K. Chesterton,George Orwell andJ. R. R. Tolkien. She is one of the editors of theJournal of William Morris Studies, theBloomsbury Academic Perspectives onFantasy series, and theVictorian literature section ofOxford Bibliographies Online. She created theScotland-Russia: Cultural Encounters Since 1900 archive.[1] She studies Anglo-Russian literary relations of the same period.[4]
Ben Moore, reviewingWilliam Morris and the Idea of Community: Romance, History and Propaganda inModern Language Review, writes that Vaninskaya's study is well-researched, with the figure of Morris tying together her three threads of romance, history, and propaganda. The purpose of the book is to examine how socialists of the period viewed the idea of community life. Moore recommends the book to people interested in the history of socialism, and students of Morris. He finds the breadth of the study "impressive" but would have liked more "speculative analysis" of the puzzles that Vaninskaya's study reveals.[5]
Sarah R. Waters, reviewingFantasies of Time and Death: Dunsany, Eddison, Tolkien forMythlore, writes that Vaninskaya deliberately looks at all three authors in their own right, avoiding the usualInkling influence approach. She states that Vaninskaya shows that the authors all addressed questions of time and death, and uses Shakespeare'sHamlet and hisSonnet 18 to illuminate their approaches. Waters concludes that the book " does whatLewis argued the best literary criticism ought to do, it 'lead[s] in' rather than taking 'you out of the literature'."[6]
Kris Swank, reviewing the book inJournal of Tolkien Research, writes that it is an academic work that places Tolkien and death in the canon of fantasy, alongside Dunsany, Eddison, and others such asHope Mirrlees and forerunners likeWilliam Morris andGeorge MacDonald. Swank finds the study "erudite" and the chapters on the three authors "admirable", but feels that they do not "hang together as a unified monograph". All the same, she writes, scholars will find much to enjoy, especially in the Tolkien chapter.[7]
Michael Hughes, reviewingLondon Through Russian Eyes, 1896–1914 for theSlavonic and East European Review, writes that the collection offers "a rich set of readings that show how a number of Russian journalists and writers presented life in London to their readers back home". with an "excellent critical apparatus" and a "valuable" introduction. Hughes comments that a little more context on Russian radical thought would have been helpful, but that the attitudes in the book are "vividly outlined" and the sources are "a fascinating collection" which Vaninskaya has "meticulously edited".[8]
Vaninskaya's bookWilliam Morris and the Idea of Community: Romance, History and Propaganda, 1880-1914 won the 2011 Choice Outstanding Academic Title award.[1]
Her bookFantasies of Time and Death: Dunsany, Eddison, Tolkien won theMythopoeic Society's 2021 award for Mythopoeic Scholarship.[2]
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