This book explores the palimpsestic realm of translation, illustration and interpretation in the act of reading, with examples from Dante to the sculptor Rachel Whiteread. Reynolds Matthew shows that the practice of reading readings suggests tactics for criticism in general.

Part I: Introduction 1. Illustrations, Translations, and Interpretations Part II: The Verbal and the Visual: Allusion, Reiteration, Textuality and Paint 2. Like and Unlike: Dante in Tennyson's 'Maud' 3. Turner in Time 4. Robert Browning Explained 5. Poussin and The Sight of Death 6. Goya's Private Pages 7. Robert Browning's Private Performances 8. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Epistolary Poetry 9. Watercolour: Expression and Illustration 10. The Serpentining Strands of Browning's Verse 11. Dryden Transfused Part III: Translations: Crossing Places 12. Ciaran Carson's Dante: 'tribulations linguistic' 13. Diego Marani and the Idea of a European Language 14. David Mitchell's Smaller Island 15. How to Read a Translation 16. Browning and Translationese 17. Giuseppe Ungaretti: Translations Translated 18. Filtered Phrases: Pavese and Modern Italian Poetry 19. On Judging the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize Part IV: Copies, Commodities and Recollections 20. Millais's Artificial Image-Making 21. Douglas Coupland: The Novel as Package 22. Rachel Whiteread's Halted Steps 23. E. L. Doctorow and the 'El' 24. George Stubbs: The Discipline of the Spur 25. Dante on the Tube