Renée Fox, The Necromantics. Reanimation, the Historical Imagination, and Victorian British and Irish Literature, Columbus, The Ohio State University Press, 2023, 267 pp. ISBN 9780814258736.

t sometimes happens, in Nineteenth century Studies, that a study appears where periodization is thoroughly rediscussed. Such is the case with The Necromantics by Renée Fox, an engaging and well documented research where the author attempts to unroot the Romantic foundations of Victorian British and Irish Literature; or at least, that is the impression one gathers upon reading this fascinating examination. Better put, after finishing the book, one wishes for studies tailored around a comprehensive perspective such as Fox’s to be published more often, and that such studies would embrace a more concrete theoretical framework than Fox’s. Indeed, while alluring, the subject matter the author chose to delve into seems to have narrowed the scopes of Fox’s argumentation. At the same time, because they are not anchored to solid and definite theoretical premises, Fox’s contentions on authors such as Yeats, Browning, and Stoker, end up wobbling on semantic impressions, rather than on substantial analyses of textual and cultural dynamics.