MLR, 96. I, 2001 299 this meeting were later included in G. H. Lewes' Lifeof Goethe (I855). Like other naturalizersof German culture, such as Sarah Austin, Thomas Carlyle or George Eliot, he used his experiences abroad to help him define and reassert his own identity, and like them he used the foreign intellectual space he discovered as a ground on which he could challenge, question and at times subvert mainstream ideas in a wide range of disciplines, including the religion and philosophy of the tradition in which he grew up. Linguistically, this newly discovered space is manifested in a kind of sub-language, a pidgin German, which at the beginning of Thackeray'scareer had a private dimension, and, particularlyin hisjournals, was employed to depict the author'speccadilloes. German phrases are also detectable in Thackeray'screativewriting,where they enhance the realismwith which foreign charactersand settingsare introduced. Thackeray's German discourseis polyphonous and is brought to bear in a wide range of artisticcreation, embracingfiction, drawing,translation,and the criticism of German literature,music and fine art, as well as its reception in Britain.What is more, the author's interest in German culture, which additionally comprised the fieldsof philosophy, theology and medicine as well as pedagogy and craftsmanship, was Janus-faced in its wider implications. On the one hand, German thinking helped to shape his literary production in English. It facilitated the creation of German fictional types and settings such as the bootmaker Stiffelkindin Stubbs's Calendar and the town of Pumpernickelin Vanity Fair.German writing,painting and musicwere the objectsofThackeray'scriticismin awide rangeof Britishperiodicals, and he also translatedGerman poetry, makingit accessibleto Englishreaders.The fact that Thackerayhad immersedhimselfin a foreignculturealso enabled him, on the other hand, to take a fresh look at the traditions of his native country and allowed him to redefine their parameters. What is more, Thackeray's AngloGerman discoursecannot be depicted as merelya two-sidedinfiltration,for afterhe had settledin Parisin 1834 for a sojournof three yearshis picture of Germanywas also shaped by his experiences in France. The presentation of Germany to his British readers thus gains a more international dimension and is henceforth best evaluatedin the 'comparative'context of Franco-German and Europeanrelations. Prawer's comprehensive analysis is thoroughly researched and convincing throughout. One of the strongestfeatures of his monograph is the skilfulmastery with which the author examines the interaction between the different discourses depicted above, as well as their function in Thackeray'sceuvreas a whole. Breeches andMetaphysics is an essential study, not only for readerswith an interestin the life and work of Thackeray but also for scholarsin the field of Anglo-German literary relationsand the wider domain of culturaltransmission. UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS SUSANNE STARK InPraiseofAntiheroes. Figures andThemes inModern European Literature, 1830-g980. By VICTOR BROMBERT. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1999. ix + i68 pp. $29; ?23.25. Victor Brombert'sname is well knownto any studentof nineteenth-centuryFrench literature,not only for his canonical monographson Stendhal, Hugo, and Flaubert but also for important comparative studies such as TheIntellectual Hero(1962) and TheHeroinLiterature (1969), and most recently, TheHidden Reader (1988). It is clearin everythinghe writesthathe is a scholarof the 'old school', in the admirablesense of having both breadth and depth within the field of modern European high culture, being multi-lingual both geographically and historically.But (of course there is a MLR, 96. I, 2001 299 this meeting were later included in G. H. Lewes' Lifeof Goethe (I855). Like other naturalizersof German culture, such as Sarah Austin, Thomas Carlyle or George Eliot, he used his experiences abroad to help him define and reassert his own identity, and like them he used the foreign intellectual space he discovered as a ground on which he could challenge, question and at times subvert mainstream ideas in a wide range of disciplines, including the religion and philosophy of the tradition in which he grew up. Linguistically, this newly discovered space is manifested in a kind of sub-language, a pidgin German, which at the beginning of Thackeray'scareer had a private dimension, and, particularlyin hisjournals, was employed to depict the author'speccadilloes. German phrases are also detectable in Thackeray'screativewriting,where they enhance the realismwith which foreign charactersand settingsare introduced. Thackeray's...