Abraham Fraunce, The Shepherds' Logic and Other Dialectical Writings
Edited by Zenón Luis-Martínez
Critical Texts 46•29 April 2016
- ‘Luis-Martínez gives as rigorous and detailed an account of the work’s genesis and immediate context as most readers could possibly wish for, offering much greater precision about Fraunce’s sources than earlier studies have been willing or able to provide... Fraunce has found a well-informed and sympathetic editor who can guide readers through what will be, to most, the unappealing thickets of humanistic logic, and direct their attention, instead, to the instructive value of this idiosyncratic Elizabethan voice.’ — Michael Hetherington, Spenser Review 47.1.14, Winter 2017
- ‘Luis-Martínez’s introduction not only explains Ramism but also puts Fraunce’s project in dialogue with Spenser’s 'Shepheardes Calender’.’ — Katherine Eggert, English Literature 57, 2017, 209
- ‘All in all, for the foreseeable future Luis-Martínez’s meticulous, ground-breaking edition will be the obligatory point of departure for all students and scholars with an interest in Fraunce’s logical writings, as well as a providing a useful introduction to English Ramism in general. The book is a credit to English Renaissance studies in Spain, and Luis-Martínez is to be congratulated.’ — Jonathan P. A. Sell, Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies Yearbook 27, 2017, 255–61
- ‘The edition issues a siren call to literary scholars, in particular those working on historical formalism, and literature and education, to probe afresh for potential reciprocity between poetry and logic in England in this period... By making a rationale for reading The Shepherds’ Logic not as a poor cousin of Fraunce’s later, more famous textbook, but in its own right with its own arguments to make about poetry and logic, and the vernacular, Luis-Martínez elevates this text to essential reading for those working on English humanism and early modern education and literature more broadly.’ — Emma Annette Wilson, Spanish Journal of English Studies 38, 2017, 139‒143
- ‘Many are the reasons why Zenón Luis-Martínez’s critical edition of Abraham Fraunce’s The Shepherds’ Logic is a highly valuable contribution to early modern scholarship... As customary with editions published by the MHRA, there is a “Textual Notes” section at the end of the work to supplement the rich comments of the footnotes that run throughout the text, a final glossary of rare and archaic words, and an updated bibliography.’ — Rocío Gutiérrez Sumillera, Miscelánea 56, 2017, 141-144
Agostino Valier, Instituzione d'ogni stato lodevole delle donne cristiane
Edited by Francesco Lucioli
Critical Texts 43•1 June 2015
Angelo Beolco (il Ruzante), La prima oratione
Edited by Linda L. Carroll
Critical Texts 16•9 March 2009
- ‘This volume is undoubtedly a welcome addition to our knowledge and understanding of the most remarkable author-actor of the Italian Renaissance. This is especially so textually, in its bringing a significant and neglected work—in terms of theatre and ideas—to an anglophone audience, and in its raising provocative questions about the degree of daring and the limits of the polemical in Ruzante.’ — Ronnie Ferguson, Modern Language Review 105.2, 2010, 576-79 (full text online)
- ‘A complete scholarly edition of the work transcribing all three manuscript versions of the oration ... This volume should be welcomed by scholars of the period.’ — Martin W. Walsh, Sixteenth Century Journal XLIV:2, 2013, 618-19
Anne Cooke’s Englishing of Bernardino Ochino
Edited by Patricia Demers 
Tudor and Stuart Translations 30•8 August 2023
Antonio Malatesti, La Tina. Equivoci rusticali
Edited by Davide Messina
Critical Texts 41•1 March 2014
- ‘Dobbiamo rendere merito a Davide Messina, Senior Lecturer presso l’Università di Edimburgo e fine studioso di letteratura italiana del Seicento, se possiamo leggere ed apprezzare i cinquanta sonetti che compongono la raccolta poetica’ — Mario Ceroti, Mosaici online at www.mosaici.org.uk, 2014
An Apology or Answer in Defence of The Church Of England: Lady Anne Bacon's Translation of Bishop John Jewel's Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae
Edited by Patricia Demers
Tudor and Stuart Translations 22•1 January 2016
- ‘Lady Anne Bacon’s 'An Apology or Answer in Defence of the Church of England', edited by Patricia Demers for the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) Tudor and Stuart Translations series, has a comprehensive and wonderfully clear introduction describing Bacon’s provocative and blunt style, her commitment to humanist rather than technical translation principles, and her motives for taking on a translation of John Jewel’s flash point 'Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae' in the first place.’ — Katherine Eggert, English Literature 57, 2017, 208
- ‘Patricia Demers’s new edition is an important addition to the MHRA series Tudor and Stuart Translations. In line with the ambitions of the series, the edition makes Anne’s translation more accessible to modern readers, both through its substantial introduction and through the comprehensive footnotes on the text itself... This edition will be welcomed not only by scholars of early modern female translation, but also by those interested in the place held by the Apology in Elizabethan religious debate.’ — Gemma Allen, Renaissance Quarterly 70.1, Spring 2017, 361-62
- ‘This is an excellent volume and should become the new standard edition of the English translation of the Apologia. The work is available in an affordable paperback edition, making it ideal for classroom use.’ — Greg Peters, Sixteenth Century Journal 48.1, 2017, 242-43
- ‘Patricia Demers’s beautifully- and painstakingly-edited volume makes an excellent addition to the series... Demers has produced a very fine and full edition of the Bacon/Jewel Apology or Answer in Defence of the Church of England that should be invaluable to scholars and graduate students working in early modern women’s writing, Elizabethan history, and the history and theology of the English Reformation.’ — Patricia Brace, Renaissance and Reformation 40.2, Spring 2017, 169-171
- ‘This edition is an invaluable resource for both students and scholars for many reasons, such as its structure and features, the excellent background information in the introduction, and the clarity of Demers’s writing... This volume will prove very useful to scholars of the Elizabethan Church, and its glossary and footnotes also make it accessible for students. Considering the centrality of its argument to early Elizabethan religious debate, this new edition is an invaluable addition to modern translations of early modern primary sources.’ — Angela Ranson, Spenser Review 48.2.11, Spring-Summer 2018
The Art of Cervantes in Don Quixote: Critical Essays
Edited by Stephen Boyd, Trudi L. Darby and Terence O'Reilly
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 27•23 September 2019
- ‘El libro constituye pues, en mi opinión, un aporte significativo y novedoso del cervantismo británico para el estudio y la reevaluación de la obra maestra cervantina.’ — Ruth Fine, Hispanic Research Journal 21.4, 2020, 463-66 (full text online)
- ‘A welcome addition to the libraries of Cervantes scholars.’ — John T. Cull, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 98.4, 2021, 667-68
Arthur Golding’s A Moral Fabletalk and Other Renaissance Fable Translations
Edited by Liza Blake and Kathryn Vomero Santos
Tudor and Stuart Translations 12•3 January 2017
- ‘An excellent overview of fable and its literary and educational significance for nearly two centuries, from William Caxton’s edition of 1484 to John Ogilby’s fables, last printed in 1675... this is an important book that every library should have, not only for the texts that it presents but also because it shows the remarkable range of cultural work done by fable during the long Renaissance.’ — Edward Wheatley, Renaissance Quarterly 2018, 70.4, 1652-54
- ‘Overall, this collection is a significant contribution to the study of English Renaissance translations, an exceptional tool to understand the function of Aesopian fables in the early modern period, and an accessible new source for scholars interested in Golding's work. It would also work well in upper-level undergraduate courses, providing students with a fascinating and illuminating view of the world of Aesopian fables' translation. This magnificent volume will be an excellent addition for any library.’ — Florinda Ruiz, Sixteenth Century Journal XLVIII:3, 2017, 813-15
- ‘Exhibits the same virtues as Kendal’s edition [of Chapman's Homer, TST 21]. The editors’ inclusion of a variety of Aesopian fables from the late fifteenth through the mid-seventeenth century, together with good reproductions of contemporary engravings and woodcuts, beautifully demonstrates the malleability of the genre.’ — Lowell Gallagher, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 58.1, Winter 2018, 219-77
- ‘The collection’s extensive black-and-white woodcut and engraving reproductions, which appear on almost every other page, contribute substantially to its aesthetic appeal, while its large format and sturdy construction make it well worth the reasonable purchase price. Overall, this literally fabulous collection will make a welcome addition and substantial contribution to any scholarly library.’ — Mark Albert Johnston, Renaissance and Reformation 41.1, Winter 2018, 173-75
- ‘The individual fables are supplemented by an index, a glossary of lesser-known terms, a comprehensive bibliography, and summaries of the publication history of each text, all of which help make the volume invaluable as a reference work.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.1, 2018, 115
- ‘The fables are all illustrated with beautifully clear images taken from old texts. There is a concise and useful introduction covering literary- theoretical and -historical aspects of the fable as a kind of writing, and also the editorial principles used in preparing the texts... The new MHRA edition is justified on the grounds of its greater availability (it costs £35), and also because it contains a lot more material in the form of the fables by other authors. The range of authors and texts offered by the new edition is surely what will make it so valuable (and cheap) an edition to any university library.’ — Mike Pincombe, Spenser Review 48.2.14, Spring-Summer 2018
- ‘This recent volume from the MHRA’s series Tudor & Stuart Translations offers a fascinating insight into the production, circulation, and consumption of the genre of the fable, often neglected in early modern scholarship. The editors perform a valuable service in recognizing that much research still remains to be executed in this area of English Studies, an area which is all too often overshadowed by better- established traditions of theorization and criticism in other European languages.’ — Andrew Hiscock, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 113-15 (full text online)
Artifice and Invention in the Spanish Golden Age
Edited by Stephen Boyd and Terence O'Reilly
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 3•1 November 2014
Authority, Innovation and Early Modern Epistemology: Essays in Honour of Hilary Gatti
Edited by Martin McLaughlin, Ingrid D. Rowland and Elisabetta Tarantino
Legenda (General Series) •9 October 2015
Between Two Worlds: The autos sacramentales of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Amy Fuller
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 100•22 June 2015
Biography in Early Modern France 1540-1630: Forms and Functions
Katherine MacDonald
Research Monographs in French Studies 23•14 November 2007
- ‘This useful monograph presents five case studies of Early Modern biographies (including one autobiography)... MacDonald's work frames these two well-known texts in such a way as to encourage continued investigation of Renaissance biography as a fully-fledged prose genre.’ — Forum for Modern Language Studies April 2009, 226)
- ‘The first perspective [in this book] situates biography as a genre belonging to antique epideictic rhetoric... The second is the narrative of what might be called the facts of biographical life... The third is what could be called a concetto, that is, the biographer's own life perspective, conscious or unconscious, in the biography he is writing. This is what really interests Katherine MacDonald, because of her own radical-individualist perspective on relations between the biographer and his subject.’ — Orest Ranum, Renaissance Quarterly 62, 2009, 229-31
- ‘Elegantly written, clearly argued, and erudite, this is a rewarding and thought-provoking book and a valuable contribution to the study of early modern French humanism.’ — Joan Davies, Modern Language Review 105.1, January 2010, 241-42 (full text online)
- ‘Interesting and original interpretations of biographies in which reading between the lines was every bit as important as the lines themselves.’ — John Lewis, French Studies 64.2, April 2010
- ‘An interesting and thought-provoking study which is well worth reading, albeit with a grain of salt.’ — Sarah Nelson, Biography 32.4, Fall 2009, 840-42
Boccaccio and the Book: Production and Reading in Italy 1340-1520
Rhiannon Daniels
Italian Perspectives 19•17 July 2009
- ‘This descriptive study provides many details that will benefit any scholar interested in the reception of Boccaccio’s works before the transformations they undergo in the later Cinquecento.’ — Martin Eisner, Renaissance Quarterly 63.2, 2010, 545-46
- ‘Original and highly detailed... Chapter 1 could usefully be recommended to students of the history of the book in Italy for the clarity with which it presents all of the aspects that need to be considered in a discussion of readership, reception, production, and paratext, in both manuscripts and printed books... A significant contribution to the history of the book in Italy.’ — Jane Everson, Modern Language Review 106.2, April 2011, 564-66 (full text online)
- ‘This book is a valuable and stimulating contribution to the reception history of Boccaccio. Particularly interesting is the way that Daniels looks at manuscripts and printed editions that have not been given their due, and the reader will constantly come across intriguing details.’ — K. P. Clarke, Medium Aevum 74, 2010
Book Production and Letters in the Western European Renaissance: Essays in Honour of Conor Fahy
Edited by Anna Laura Lepschy, John Took, and Dennis E. Rhodes
Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association 12•1 January 1986
Caravaggio in Film and Literature: Popular Culture's Appropriation of a Baroque Genius
Laura Rorato
Italian Perspectives 30•1 November 2014
Caroline Literature
Edited by Rory Loughnane, Andrew J. Power and Peter Sillitoe
Yearbook of English Studies 44•1 January 2014
Casimir Britannicus: English Translations, Paraphrases, and Emulations of the Poetry of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski
Edited by Piotr Urbański and Krzysztof Fordoński
Critical Texts 11•1 May 2008
Casimir Britannicus: English Translations, Paraphrases, and Emulations of the Poetry of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski
Edited by Piotr Urbański and Krzysztof Fordoński
Critical Texts 25•15 October 2010
- ‘The anthology is a sound philological achievement which illustrates an important link between the mostly Protestant English and Scottish poets and their most famous Polish Catholic counterpart, a continuous poetic interest from the mid-seventeenth to the nineteenth century. ‘Casimir Britannicus’ thus becomes for us Sarbiewski rediscovered.’ — George Gömöri, Modern Language Review 107.3, July 2012, 1007-09 (full text online)
- ‘In the well written and well-structured introduction to the volume ... Krzysztof Fordoński and Piotr Urbański identify six waves of Sarbiewski’s long-lasting popularity ... The editors did an excellent job in assembling this carefully thought out critical edition.’ — Robert Maryks, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu July-December 2011, 758-59
- ‘These days, enthusiasts of Neo-Latin poetry in general, and Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (Sarbievius) in particular, are few and far between. Perhaps only they will recognize the great importance of this new anthology, but all who do take cognizance of it will receive it with gratitude.’ — Charles S. Kraszewski, Polish Review Fall 2008
- ‘Casimir Britannicus is a landmark publication.’ — Anne Barbeau Gardiner, Sarmatian Review 30.1, January 2010, 1469-71
Chivalry, Academy, and Cultural Dialogues: The Italian Contribution to European Culture
Edited by Stefano Jossa and Giuliana Pieri
Italian Perspectives 37•19 December 2016
- ‘An interesting aspect is the rhythmical alternation of the contributions, organized in an almost Dantesque numerological order. Each section counts six chapters and is opened by an extraordinarily distinguished scholar [...] discussing challenging topics that escape traditional frames of literary studies: vocal transmissions of Petrarch’s verse, Camillo’s theater of memory, and Berni’s Rifacimento of Boiardo’s Innamorato between oral and written language... These eminent scholars and their fifteen fellow authors form a remarkable group shot of different generations of Italianists between two continents.’ — Alessandro Giammei, Renaissance Quarterly 71.9, October 2018, 1196-98
- ‘This broad and enterprising survey is provided by some of the foremost names in early modern Italian Studies... Though the volume is ambitious and highly diverse, editors Stefano Jossa and Giuliana Pieri have ensured a smooth transition of thought between the essays, and the structure of the book itself is instinctive and accessible... A substantial contribution to early modern Italian Studies, and scholars from a range of disciplines will find it a valuable and thought-provoking read.’ — Lucy Rayfield, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 150-51 (full text online)
Classical Comedy 1508-1786: A Legacy from Italy and France
Richard Andrews
Italian Perspectives 55•20 October 2022
- ‘An encyclopedic contribution to the history of comedy, with a particular focus on the transformation of comedy in Paris, where the greatest playwrights preserved the genre’s positive vision and harnessed the vitality of the Italian “Arte” to create their more serious comedies of character... The “Analyses” section is particularly valuable. It is divided between technical questions and plot or character issues, and the technical discussions, informed by Andrews extraordinary knowledge and deep understanding of how comedy works, are outstanding.’ — 552-54, Annali d'Italianistica 2023, 41, Laurie Shepard
Classical Rhetoric and the German Poet: 1620 to the Present
Anna Carrdus
Legenda (General Series) •1 January 1997
- ‘The tone is confident, the style lucid. Within a few pages the reader senses how purposeful the exposition is, and how well thought out. But what makes Anna Carrdus's performance so assured is her obvious commitment to poetry itself... It concludes with a wish that may sound audacious, yet which the undertaking wholly justifies: 'My findings will, I hope, open up an opportunity for scholarship to revise current perceptions of the history of German poetry.' She has already revised them herself, single-handed.’ — Peter Skrine, Modern Language Review 94.1, 1999, 243-5 (full text online)
- ‘Die Analysen sind treffich, und die Er≥rterungen zum literarhistorischen und poetologischen Kontext zeugen von groôer Kennerschaft.’ — Joachim Knape, Germanistik 41.2, 2000, 419
The Compositors of the First and Second Madrid Editions of 'Don Quixote'
Robert M. Flores
Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association 7•1 January 1975
Cosmos and Image in the Renaissance: French Love Lyric and Natural-Philosophical Poetry
Kathryn Banks
Legenda (General Series) •3 October 2008
- ‘A powerful interpretation of the relationship of cosmic and linguistic images... a thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis into sixteenth-century poetry and intellectual history.’ — Michael Randall, Renaissance Quarterly 62, 2009, 1237-38
- ‘Dans cet ouvrage savant, où l'érudition ne nuit jamais à la clarté de l'exposé, l'auteur choisit de réexaminer ce que Lucien Febvre appelait "l'outillage mental" du seizième siècle mais en s'attachant moins à la circulation des idées ... qu'à leur expression linguistique et au jeu auquel les soumet le poète ... Du point de vue méthodologique de nombreuses précautions sont prises, à la fois dans l'introduction et dans le corps de l'analyse ... une stratégie d'exposition qui, loin de ramener le différent au même, entend refuser l'emprise de tout schéma téléologique.’ — Francois Rigolot, French Review 83.4, March 2010, 859
- ‘This is a scholarly and rewarding study based pleasingly on close readings of an interesting combination of texts [...] a detailed and authoritative account of images which goes beyond the purely linguistic, situating its material both within a developing tradition in the history of ideas and against a backdrop of contemporary political, philosophical and theological debates. As such, with its broad and thoroughly researched range of references to writers in different disciplines and genres, it is of as much interest to the general reader as it is to specialists of Scève or Du Bartas.’ — Emma Herdman, Renaissance Studies 24.3, June 2010, 451-52
- ‘Exemplarily lucid explorations of a number of difficult problems in sixteenth-century poetic theory and practice.’ — James Helgeson, French Studies 65.2, April 2011, 239-40
- ‘A rich, persuasive account of some extraordinary poetry and a fascinating period of intellectual and literary history.’ — 'MHG', St Catharine's Magazine 2009, p. 85
A Critical, Old-Spelling Edition of the Birth of Merlin (Q1662)
Joanna Udall
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 31•1 January 1991
Cultural Reception, Translation and Transformation from Medieval to Modern Italy: Essays in Honour of Martin McLaughlin
Edited by Guido Bonsaver, Brian Richardson, and Giuseppe Stellardi
Legenda (General Series) •17 May 2017
- ‘A remarkable unified collection... [the essays] may be read in any order, so rich and abundant are the resonances among them.’ — Carmine G. Di Biase, Times Literary Supplement 8 May 2018
- ‘Zygmunt G. Barański presents a deeply contextualized understanding of the Orpheus myth in Petrarch’s Canzoniere, taking into account Virgilian and Ovidian antecedents, and the traces of their elaboration in works including the Bucolicum carmen and Familiares. At the heart of his essay, Barański boldly, but not unpersuasively, asserts Petrarch’s lyric collection of fragments to be “the great overlooked Orphic text of the Western tradition”. Brian Richardson’s essay is also among the most ambitious, tackling a massive quantity of Renaissance Italian poetic production—extempore Latin and vernacular lyric compositions—and he does so with aplomb, providing perhaps the first categorization with a qualitative/theoretical valuation of this important but almost entirely overlooked subgenre of poetry... Meriting special distinction, Peter Hainsworth’s contribution rescues John Dickson Batten’s illustrations to Dante’s Inferno (1897–1900) from their relative oblivion.’ — Sherry Roush, Renaissance Quarterly 71.9, October 2018, 1193-95
- ‘The scope, historical locus and chronological ambition of the present volume are exceptionally wide and rich... The quality of the contributions is invariably high and all are case-studies relevant to the book’s central preoccupation with cultural contact and interchange... an admirable collection, full of stimulus and surprises, handsomely produced by Legenda.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.2, July 2019, 265-66 (full text online)
- ‘This volume brings to mind one of Calvino’s own definitions, in his Why Read The Classics?: ‘The classics are those books which come to us bearing the aura of previous interpretations, and trailing behind them the traces they have left in the culture or cultures (or just in the language and customs) through which they have passed’ (McLaughlin’s translation). The volume invites readers into the palimpsest that is Italian culture, which is to say, among other things, its imitations, its intertextuality and transmediality, and its translations.’ — Antonella Braida, Translation and Literature 29, 2020, 291-96 (full text online)
- ‘The volume reads as a user guide to the most updated views on literary theory and cultural studies, demonstrating how ‘open’ a field Italian studies has become in recent years. Texts—in a semiological sense, hence comprising all meaningful artefacts of culture—are scrutinized through a wide range of approaches, including linguistic, philological, thematic, intertextual, historical, sociological, comparative. and hermeneutical.’ — Oscar Schiavone, Modern Language Review 115.3, July 2020, 737-41 (full text online)