Venice Desired

“I always read Tanner with admiration for the activity and enthusiasm of his mind, and this book shows those qualities to such a degree…that I have no hesitation in calling it his finest book so far… Tanner is one of the diminishing number of critics who continue to delight in literature and whose principal effort is to induce delight in the reader. This is a work of rare excellence.”—Sir Frank Kermode, King’s College, Cambridge

“This is not so much a work of academic scholarship (though the scholars would do well to mine it for insights) as an extremely personal testimony to the author’s own ‘site of writing.’ The recognitions are brilliant; the prose is powerful and sustained; the readings are nuanced and subtle.”—Richard Macksey, Johns Hopkins University