This collection of fifteen essays, each concerned with some aspect of the Reynard story in Europe, was one of the primary critical and historical sources I used, when writing my masters dissertation on three centuries of Reynard retellings for children in the Anglophone world. Edited by Kenneth Varty, who was also the author or co-author of five of the essays, it sets out a history of the transmission of the Reynard story in the introduction, and then delves into specific topics in each essay, from the satiric nature of the 12th-century poem, the Ysengrimus, which marked Reynard's first appearance as a named character, to the relationship of the fox and the hare in these stories. In between are essays offering: an analysis of rape and adultery in the French Roman de Renart; a look at the moral and political vision of the Alsatian Heinrich der Glichezaere's Reinhart Fuchs; a comparison of the medieval French and Dutch tradition; a history of Dutch printing of Reynaert, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries; an examination of the use of the figure of Reynaert as a Flemish national symbol in the 19th century; a history of the evolution of the episode in which the tom-cat castrates the priest, over time; a look at medieval carvings of Reynard on choir-stalls, and their didactic purpose; a history of Reynard in England, from Caxton to the present; an analysis of Hartmann Schopper's 1567 Latin Reinike; an examination of Goethe's Reineke Fuchs; an analysis of Paul Weber's Reineke cartoons; the varying presence of the Roman de Renart through history; and an analysis of the episode of the fox and the wolf in the well.

Although not all of the essays here were particularly germane to my own area of interest, when it comes to Reynard Studies, they were all fascinating. This story, which concerns the rivalry between a fox and a wolf courtier in the court of a lion king, is of great antiquity, stretching all the way back to Mesopotamian literature. That said, Reynard first made his named appearance around 1149 in Ghent, in the Latin poem Ysengrimus, where he was known as Reinardus. He first appeared in France in the 1170s, and was initially known as "Renart le goupil." Such was the linguistic influence of Le Roman de Renart, that his name became synonymous with the fox, even to the point that the previous French word for fox, "goupil," fell out of favor, and was largely replaced by "renard." Fascinating stuff! It is also interesting to note that before Reynard's full history appeared for the first time in English, thanks to the work of William Caxton, whose 1481 The History of Reynard the Fox was one of the first printed books in that language, an episode from his story was included in The Cantebury Tales. The Middle English poem, The Fox and the Wolf, also presents an episode from Reynard, although the characters are not named. There are so many connections between Reynard's story, and other works of European literature, and so many connections between the various major European traditions regarding him - the Dutch, French, German, Flemish, English, and so on - that I am sometimes surprised at how few people I know have even heard of him, or are aware of his significance, not just in the world of adult letters, but in the pages of children's literature as well. After all, when Locke wrote his Some Thoughts Concerning Education in 1693, he opined that the History of Reynard was one of the few things then available that was suitable for children to read, and many early children's books, whether for pleasure reading or educational purposes, included his story.

This is a collection I would recommend to any Reynard fans, and any reader interested in the history of the Reynard story. For general readers not yet familiar with Reynard, I would simply recommend seeking out some of the various tellings of his history. ( )