Cornell University Press : Islandica

Collection : Islandica, Cornell University Library

Islandica is a venerable series established in 1908 through a bequest from Daniel Willard Fiske, first University Librarian of Cornell University, to publish "an annual volume relating to Iceland and the . . . [Fiske] Icelandic Collection." For the first three decades of Islandica, with few exceptions, a series volume dutifully appeared yearly. Most were authored or edited by Halldór Hermannsson, first curator of the Fiske Icelandic Collection.

Volumes in the series were published by the Cornell University Library until 1932; between 1933 and 2003, the series was published by Cornell University Press. Since 2008, the series is once again being published by Cornell University Library and is distributed by Cornell University Press. For more information and submission guidelines, please visit the Islandica website.

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Wordmongers

Manuscript Culture in the Age of Print and the Case of Nineteenth-Century Iceland

David Olafsson

Taking its title from Marshall William Fishwick's description of "wordmongers" as those whose principal vocation is “speaking and writing words,” this book is a study of manuscript and scribal culture in the age of print.

New Norse Studies

New Norse Studies features 13 original contributions on Norse mythology; skaldic poetics; the proverb, ballad, and exemplum; Biblical typology and saga narrative; psychological, postcolonial, and gender-studies approaches to medieval Icelandic literature.

The Partisan Muse in the Early Icelandic Sagas (1200–1250)

Theodore M. Andersson

A study of the genesis of Old Icelandic prose literature from its roots in oral tradition to the compilation of key early sagas at the beginning of the thirteenth century.

Romance and Love in Late Medieval and Early Modern Iceland

Essays in Honor of Marianne Kalinke

Islandica LIV "The world of romance, whether secular or sacred, is often fraught with difficulties. Lovers are parted and have to struggle to be reunited, monsters or evil stepmothers have to be defeated, and the strength of one's devotion to God or...

Speak Useful Words or Say Nothing

Old Norse Studies

Joseph Harris

This selection by Susan E. Deskis and Thomas D. Hill of twelve of Joseph Harris's most important essays underscores the range of his work from critical readings of canonical texts to philological elucidation of Old Norse and Old English literary works...

The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason

Oddr Snorrason

Oddr Snorrason, a Benedictine monk in northern Iceland in the late twelfth century, composed a landmark Latin biography of the legendary Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason (died 1000 A.D.).

Morkinskinna

The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030–1157)

Morkinskinna ("rotten parchment"), the first full-length chronicle of the kings of medieval Norway (1030-1157), forms the basis of the Icelandic chronicle tradition. Based ultimately on an original from ca. 1220, the single defective manuscript was...

The Structure of Old Norse "Dróttkvætt" Poetry

Kari Ellen Gade

The drottkvett was a form of Old Norse skaldic poetry composed to glorify a chieftain's deeds or to lament his death. Kari Ellen Gade explores the structural peculiarities of ninth- and tenth-century drottkvett poetry and suggests a solution to the...

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