In this chapter, artists look back on their careers and consider what they will leave behind. Responses vary from pride to regrets. Some rethink career decisions, such as whether they should have—or should not have—gotten advanced education and how their careers might have progressed had accidents not occurred or had they chosen to pursue a different avenue of work. Artists also discuss why they create in the first place, addressing the responses of audiences locally and internationally, how it has made a difference in their own lives and the lives of others, and the notion of creativity as a necessary part of everyday life.

Debussy composed three of his planned Six Sonatas for Various Instruments between 1915 and 1917 before his death in 1918. In 2018, composers from across Europe and North America were invited to write music for the instrumentation of these three incomplete sonatas from Debussy’s grand project, for a concert to be held at the University of Glasgow Memorial Chapel. As a result, several original works were performed by the Chamber Group of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the direction of Jon Hargreaves, alongside the completed Debussy sonatas.

This chapter presents the reflections of several of these composers, exploring how they confronted the specific question of Debussy’s influence and legacy, as well as trickier questions that arise from attempts to memorialise canonical precursors through contemporary creative practice. In what ways might Debussy’s music live on through the widely diverse imaginations of twenty-first-century composers?

For contemporaneous writers on Debussy, the First World War presented a persistent problem, with many choosing to omit or minimise these years in their portrayals of the composer, or French music in general. Drawing on work in collective memory by Maurice Halbwachs and successive generations of scholars, I consider the ways in which such portrayals were constructed and speculate on the reasons for why they endured. This chapter presents three narratives and examines them in terms of the types of memory at work, the motivations of the groups sustaining these memories, and the actions undertaken by these groups to promote their visions of the past. Each narrative subscribed to a particular collective remembering of recent French music, while each was consistent in what it overlooked: that is, they all contributed to a general collective forgetting with regards to Debussy’s late works and the war years.

The book’s Conclusion offers reflections on the thematic and stylistic distinctiveness of the selected letter-writing, and its resonance for today’s readers – researchers and wider reading publics. The comparative and thematic connectedness of the correspondence of Mallarmé, Van Gogh, Morisot, Cézanne, and Zola has shone a powerful light on the capacity and the value of letters as life documents, as life-lessons, and, at times, as living letters. The Conclusion traces pathways for future critical work, drawing out some of the theoretical aspects of the book as a flexible form of critical practice for humanities researchers whether in the epistolary study of global elites or of individuals and communities whose everyday lives have yet to be fully valued by scholars and general audiences. The Conclusion reflects speculatively on the critical value and interdisciplinary potential of a comparative and thematic epistolarity studies within the landscape of modernist studies.

Morgan’s legacy was twofold: his development of processes for handling crises and his recruitment of people during crises who would live on long after he died to influence the practice of last resort lending specifically and central banking more generally.

This chapter examines how the friendships, loves, jealousies, anecdotes, and conversations of the Bloomsbury members, recorded in various auto/biographical sources, have been dramatized and novelized in several contemporary bioplays and biographical novels: Bloomsbury: A Play in Two Acts (1974) by Peter Luke; But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury (2006) by Gillian Freeman; Vanessa and Virginia (2008) by Susan Sellers; and Vanessa and Her Sister (2014) by Priya Parmar. The chapter focuses more particularly on the character of Virginia, who plays a crucial role in the intellectual and emotional dynamics of the group, and analyzes her interactions with her friends, especially Lytton, and her relationships with her family members, especially Vanessa. These posthumous literary representations of the iconic author raise questions about the resurrection and transposition of the historical figure in fiction and drama, as well as about updating and recycling her literary heritage for today’s readers and spectators.

The preface introduces the reader to the enduring fascination with Moshe Dayan, a prominent figure in Israeli history. Dayan’s legacy has been the subject of much debate and controversy among historians, and the purpose of the book is to present both the debates and the author’s own interpretation of Dayan’s life and career. It also highlights the importance of studying Dayan’s legacy, both for understanding Israeli history and for gaining insights into leadership and strategy more broadly. Dayan was a complex figure, with both strengths and weaknesses as a leader and strategist. However, his singular mental abilities, wisdom, experience, and insights continue to make him a compelling figure for study. The chapter also touches on the challenges of studying history, particularly when it comes to interpreting historical events and figures: historical facts are one thing, but interpretation is another. The book attempts to present a comprehensive and accurate historical assessment of Dayan’s life and career.

The final published debate in which Neurath participated was with Horace Kallen, founding member of the New School in New York. This discussion with manifold cultural dimensions was a fitting swansong for Neurath, summarizing key themes of his thought and highlighting essential issues of his complex and contentious legacy. Kallen suspected Neurath’s drive for ‘Unity of Science’ as harbouring the danger of totalitarianism, but Neurath defended the pluralism of his approach while accepting Kallen’s proposed term of ‘orchestration’ instead of ‘unity’ for the sciences. Neurath felt rather neglected for his scholarly achievements at the end of his life, but these now become increasingly more relevant.

The introduction sets out the aims of the book and explains in brief the history of Hopkins’s writing and reception. It begins by discussing Hopkins’s posthumous publication and its distinctive effect upon his early reputation and influence, notably in relation to modernism. The introduction then goes on to relate the more recent historical emphasis in Hopkins scholarship before setting out the approach taken in the book and outlining its contents.

Although poetic modernism marked the height of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s seminal influence, British, American, and postcolonialist poets around the globe (including in Ireland, Nigeria, Australia, Canada, and the Caribbean) continue to engage intensely with his work. Many have learned to write in their own idiosyncratic voices while honouring or debating with Hopkins, and even while intentionally echoing his innovative techniques or his ecological and spiritual themes. The topic of Hopkins’s poetic legacies is ripe for further scholarly attention. Even a brief assessment of writers he has influenced reveals that his voice has deeply shaped the contours of contemporary anglophone verse.

This conclusion briefly summarises the main findings of the book. It emphasises that the aim of the book is not to assess the trials from a legal or moral standpoint, but rather to seek to understand what drove different actors at different stages of their implementation. In doing so, the conclusion argues that while the Norwegian post-war reckoning was largely contained in legal form, this did not make the process of coming to terms with the past any easier or less controversial than comparable processes seen in other European countries.

This chapter looks at the ways how, from 1948 onwards, the meaning of the trials changed in light of the broader Cold War context internationally and intensifying criticism domestically. Administratively, the trials were coming to an end. They had, from the perspective of the public authorities, succeeded in their original purposes of securing inner peace and stability during the early months following the liberation. Yet, from 1948 onwards, they became acutely relevant in light of the new political threats and challenges the Norwegian state faced, at the same time as the authorities sought to defend their legacy in light of mounting criticism from some sentenced collaborators and public intellectuals. This chapter therefore argues that the final stages of the trials assumed a renewed demonstrative dimension as the government sought to reassert its administrative and interpretative authority over the trials in a changed political context.

The freedman Gregorio Cosme Osorio’s extant letters from Madrid in 1795 are the focus of Chapter 6. They provide a direct perspective of a cobrero leader’s legal culture, his views on the case, and his activities as liaison between Madrid and El Cobre (including an alleged meeting with the king). Cosme’s missives from the royal court, which high colonial officials considered subversive, critiqued politics of the law in the colony and kept the cobreros abreast of the imperial edicts issued in Madrid in their favor which colonial authorities ignored. His liaison role during fifteen years was crucial to keep the case alive in the royal court.

‘Hannibal’s legacy’ is an influential 1965 book by a controversial historian, Arnold Toynbee. It set the agenda for the next half-century and more of scholarship by arguing that the ‘legacy’ consisted of lasting damage to the agricultural economy of Italy and the political stability of Rome. Its contemporary reception is presented and analysed. The (disputed) extent of Italy’s devastation, as divinely promised to Hannibal in an alleged dream while still in Iberia, is assessed, and manpower difficulties discussed. Hannibal’s legacy at defeated Carthage was more obviously damaging, though the city did not fall until 146. Hannibal’s literary legacy in Latin and Greek literature was systematically ambiguous: fear, horror, fascination, and even admiration. Scipio’s literary afterlife and perceived qualities are explored initially through the medium of the ‘Dream of Scipio’, a fictional work by Cicero in imitation of Plato: Scipio Africanus appears to his adoptive grandson Aemilianus in his sleep.