Riddleyspeak: A Bibliography

Of course, almost any work on Riddley Walker is likely to mention the language, but this listing is restricted to works which have discussion or analysis of it.

Asterisks mark items which I have not (yet) been able to consult.

Abberley, Will. ‘Language Decay and Creation in Postapocalyptic Fiction’. Apocalyptic Discourse in Contemporary Culture, Post-Millennial Perspectives on the End of the World, edited by Monica Germanà and Aris Mousoutzanis, Routledge, 2014, pp. 193–203.

Boyne, Martin. ‘Sentenced to Destruction: A Stylistic Analysis of the Syntax of Two Post-Apocalyptic Novels’. Working with English: Medieval and Modern Language, Literature and Drama, edited by J Gibsom et al., School of English Studies, University of Nottingham, 2009, pp. 1–20.

*Boyne, Martin R. Rebuilding Words, Constructing Worlds: A Stylistic Analysis of Lexical and Syntactic Creativity and Their Role in Fictional-World Creation in Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker. 2012. Lancaster, PhD Thesis. Abstract

Després, Elaine. ‘“Traduit Du Riddleyspeak (Anterre) Par Nicolas Richard”: Quand Le Traducteur Se Fait Lecteur de Science-Fiction’. ReS Futurae, vol. 4, 2004, https://doi.org/10.4000/12zi0.

*Dirda, Michael. ‘Riddling Out a Canterbury Tale’. Washington Post, June 1981, p. 14.

Dowling, David. Fictions of Nuclear Disaster. University of Iowa, 1987, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08228-5. Chapter 7, "Two Exemplary Fictions".

Dowling, David. ‘Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker: Doing the Connections’. Critique, vol. 29, no. 3, 1988, pp. 179–87.

Freeborn, Dennis. ‘New Words for Old’. Style. Studies in English Language, Palgrave, 1996, pp. 20–32, https://doi.org./10.1007/978-1-349-24710-3_3.

*Glastonbury, Marion. ‘Incommunicable Secrets’. Times Educational Supplement, 31 Oct. 1980, p. 22.

Gordin, Michael D., and Joshua T. Katz. ‘The Walker and the Wake: Analysis of Non-Intrinsic Philological Isolates.’ Pataphilology: An Irreader, edited by Sean Gurd and Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, Punctum Books, 2018, pp. 61–92, http://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.2353854.5.

Hannah, Matthew, et al. ‘Scale and Speculative Futures in Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker and Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312’. Practices of Speculation, transcript, 2020, pp. 191–208, 10.1515/9783839447512-009.

Jordison, Sam. ‘Worth the “Trubba”: Making Sense of Riddley Walker’s Language’. Guardian, 7 Nov. 2017.

*Lake, David J. ‘Making the Two One: Language and Mysticism in “Riddley Walker”’. Extrapolation, vol. 25, no. 2, 1984, pp. 157–70, https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.1984.25.2.157.

*Lecercle, Jean-Jacques. ‘Riddley Au Pays Des Merveilles’. Fiction et Entropie: Une Autre Fin de Siècle Anglaise, edited by Max Duperray, University of Provence, 1996, pp. 200–21.

Le Plouhinec, Valerie. ‘Le Grand Boum de Nicholas Richard’. Translitérature, vol. 45, 2013, pp. 6–14. (Interview with French translator)

Maclean, Marie. ‘The Signifier as Token: The Textual Riddles of Russell Hoban’. Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, vol. 70, 1988, pp. 211–19, https://doi.org/10.1179/aulla.1988.001.

Maynor, Natalie, and Richard F. Patteson. ‘Language as Protagonist in Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker’. Critique, vol. 26, no. 1, 1984, pp. 18–25.

Meijer, Bart. Determining the Plausibility of Future Language in (Post-)Apocalyptic Fiction. 2011. Utrecht, MA thesis, Faculty of Humanities. Chapter 2.1 "Riddley Walker".

Menta, C. ‘¿ Qué Lenguaje y Cómo Restituirlo? Reflexiones Sobre La Transcripción En Antropología a Partir de Dudo Errante, de Russell Hoban’. Revista de Antropología y Sociología: Virajes, vol. 24, no. 2, 2022, pp. 149–63, https://doi.org/10.17151/rasv.2022.24.2.8.

Mey, Jacob. ‘The Last of the Canterbury Tales: Artificial Intelligence in the Fifth Millennium’. Prague Linguistic Circle Papers, edited by Eva Hajicova and et al., vol. 1, Benjamins, 1995, pp. 261–94.

Moreno, Fernando Ángel. ‘Russell Hoban, Ed. 2011: Dudo Errante’ (Review). ATLANTIS. Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies, vol. 36, no. 2, 2014, pp. 255–58.

Morris, Catherine. ‘The Land That Rises’. Dialect as Unheimlich in British Writing 2018. Kingston University, PhD Thesis. Chapter 4.2 "Riddley Walker".

Mullen, R. D. ‘Dialect, Grapholect, and Story: Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker as Science Fiction’. Science Fiction Studies, vol. 27, no. 3, 2000, pp. 391–406.

Myers, Edward. ‘An Interview with Russell Hoban’. Literary Review, vol. 28, no. 1, 2011, pp. 5–16.

Norledge, Jessica. ‘Language in Dystopia’. The Language of Dystopia, edited by Jessica Norledge, Palgrave, Macmillan, 2022, pp. 43–45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93103-2_2.

Pascual Garrido, Maria Luisa. ‘Traducir Riddley Walker: La Inestabilidad Del Signo’. TRANS: Revista De Traductología, vol. 10, 2016, pp. 59–72, https://doi.org/10.24310/TRANS.2006.v0i10.1086. [PDF]

Pietroni, Anna Lawrence. ‘Learning to Read Riddley’. The Reader, vol. 44, 2011, pp. 100 –105.

Porter, Jeffrey. ‘“Three Quarks for Muster Mark”: Quantum Wordplay and Nuclear Discourse in Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker’. Contemporary Literature, vol. 31, no. 4, 1990, pp. 448–69.

Rabey, David Ian. ‘Unwriting the Future: Russell Hoban’s Stage Adaptation of Riddley Walker’ Modern Drama, vol. 67, no. 1, 2024, pp. 83-105. https://doi.org/10.3138/md-67-1-1126

Schwetman, J. W. ‘Russell Hoban’s  "Riddley Walker and the Language of the Future’. Extrapolation, vol. 26, no. 3, 1985, pp. 212–19.

Scott, Jeremy. ‘Eroded into Being: Discourse, Style and Semantics in Russell Hoban’s “Riddley Walker”’. Interfaces in Language, edited by David Hornsby, vol. 2, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011, pp. 87–102, https://kar.kent.ac.uk/47738/.

*Sisk, David W. Transformations of Language in Modern Dystopias. Greenwood, 1997.

Sorlin, Sandrine. ‘L’inquiétante Étrangeté Du Langage Dans Riddley Walker de Russell Hoban’. Études Anglaises, vol. 32, 2007, https://doi.org/10.4000/ebc.9532.

Sorlin, Sandrine. ‘Reste et Résistance Linguistique: Le Langage Métaphorico-Fantastique Dans Riddley Walker de Russell Hoban’. Études Anglaises, vol. 61, no. 1, 2008, pp. 31–42, https://doi.org/10.3917/etan.611.0031.

Stockwell, Peter. ‘Futuretalk: One Small Step towards a Chronolinguistics’. Nottingham Linguistic Circular, vol. 15, 2000, pp. 55–68.

Stockwell, Peter. The Poetics of Science Fiction. Longman, 2000. Chapter 3.4.2, "The Vernacular of the Future".

Studer, Yvonne. Ideas, Obsessions, Intertexts: A Nonlinear Approach to Russell Hoban’s Fiction. Francke, 2000. Chapter 6, "Riddley Walker".

Taylor, N. D. ‘“…You Bes Go Ballsy”: Riddley Walker’s Prescription for the Future’. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 27–39, https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.1989.9934682.

Tošić Lojanica, Tiana M. ‘Is Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker (un) translatable?’ Nasleđe, Kragujevac, vol. 14, no. 36, 2017, pp. 109–20 (in Serbian), https://doi.org/10.5937/naslKg1736109T.

Vincent, Benet. ‘Tryd to Put My Mynd Where He Cud Lissen Me: Riddley Walker and Language Invention’. Ponying the Slovos, 24 Oct. 2020.

Vincent, Benet. ‘The Sylents Swallering Up the Souns -- Riddley Walker and the Critics’. Ponying the Slovos, 14 Nov. 2020.

Vincent, Benet. ‘Riddley, Max, Iain and Dave: Riddley Walker’s Linguistic Legacies’. Ponying the Slovos, 20 Nov. 2020.

Zimmerman, Jess. ‘The Construction of Language in Riddley Walker’. Reactor, 30 Nov. 2021.

Peter Christian
March 2025