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

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

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

La Devineresse ou les faux enchantemens
Édition présentée, établie, et annotée par Julia Prest
Critical Texts 12•1 November 2007

Le Gouvernement présent, ou éloge de son Eminence, satyre ou la Miliade
Edited by Paul Scott
Critical Texts 14•1 October 2010

  • ‘Paul Scott’s edition is both meticulous and erudite ... [the] astute analysis of the political and literary significance of the poem will be of broad interest to scholars who work on the political and cultural history of early modern France.’ — Peter Shoemaker, Modern Language Review 107.2, 2012, 618-20 (full text online)
  • ‘The editor convincingly argues that the Miliade deserves our attention today as not only the first significant satire since the years of the Catholic League in the 1580s, but also the pamphlet that, in an increasingly centralized and controlled public sphere, made an audacious claim for the possibility of resistance ... This erudite edition will interest students of seventeenth-century history, literature, and all those interested in the history of political dissent.’ — Antonia Szabari, Renaissance Quarterly 67, 2014, 565-66
  • ‘Après 90 pages de riche présentation, l’édition elle-même occupe 30 pages complétées de d’autant de notes (32 pages) qui en permettent la plus exacte compréhension ... [une] excellente édition.’ — Françoise Hildesheimer, Dix-septième siècle 258, 2013, 171-72
  • ‘In this impeccably researched new edition, editor Paul Scott shows exactly why this pamphlet should be taken seriously ... I have no doubt that this edition will be essential reading for all scholars of the period.’ — Nicholas Hammond, Seventeenth Century XXVII, 2012, 246-47

Les Paraboles Maistre Alain en Françoys
Edited by Tony Hunt
Critical Texts 2•30 June 2005

  • ‘The reader now has a reliable text of the Paraboles ... Alan of Lille’s collection, whether in Latin or in French, was an important work, both for the later Middle Ages and for the humanistic learning of the Renaissance, and it can now be studied both as a work in its own right and as part of the cultural life of its time.’ — Glyn S. Burgess, Modern Language Review 101.4, 2006, 1107 (full text online)
  • ‘An interesting addition for our knowledge of paroemiological literature ... As one would expect from such a prolific and experienced scholar as Tony Hunt, the Introduction covers in an efficient and scholarly manner all the essential questions relating to the text he prints.’ — Max Walkley, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 27.2, 2006, 47-48
  • ‘L'analyse perspicace de Tony Hunt montre comment les choix différents opérés par les deux imprimeurs pour ce qui concerne la mise en page orientent la lecture du recueil ... Il s'agit dans l'ensemble d'une excellente édition...’ — Maria Colombo Timelli, Medium Aevum 75, 2006, 175

Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier (La Grande Mademoiselle)
Translated by P. J. Yarrow with the collaboration of William Brooks
New Translations 1•20 December 2010

  • ‘This new version of Mademoiselle’s memoirs is particularly well-suited to undergraduate teaching as it highlights the Fronde, court life and manners, and the life of noble women in the seventeenth century. It also constitutes a valuable contribution to the history of sentiments and emotions.’ — Elise M. Dermineur, French History 30, 2016, 429-30
  • ‘This volume is the first in an exciting series of new editions of classic works translated into English published by the Modern Humanities Research Association ... [T]his is a highly readable translation of an eminently readable memoir ... [It] provides an efficient, clean, easy to read and well-presented edition that will be quite useful for undergraduate teaching.’ — Jonathan Spangler, H-France 11, August 2011
  • ‘This remarkable volume will appeal to a range of readers—amateurs d’histoire, undergraduates, or anglophone researchers seeking a vivid aperçu of courtly life in seventeenth-century France. It bodes well for the MHRA New Translations series, of which this is the first and as such sets a high standard indeed.’ — Juliette Cherbuliez, Modern Language Review 107, 2012, 1253-54 (full text online)

Poetics, Performance and Politics in French and Italian Renaissance Comedy
Lucy Rayfield
Transcript 18•23 February 2022

  • ‘[Rayfield] provides in-depth socio-cultural and cross-cultural context. She has contributed an unusual study of the very small world of French humanist comedy, stimulatingly expanding it both from the inside and from the outside, schoolboys, polygraphs, and printers brushing elbows with French royals and wealthy Florentines.’ — Corinne Noirot, H-France 23 (May 2023), no. 86

The Reinvention of Theatre in Sixteenth-Century Europe: Traditions, Texts and Performance
Edited by T. F. Earle and Catarina Fouto
Legenda (General Series) •8 June 2015

  • ‘Sem dúvida, uma perspectiva rica e bastante abrangente do fenómeno teatral na Europa do séc. XVI.’ — Manuel José De Sousa Barbosa, Euphrosyne 45, 2017, 658-60

Robert Garnier in Elizabethan England: Mary Sidney Herbert’s Antonius and Thomas Kyd’s Cornelia
Edited by Marie-Alice Belle and Line Cottegnies
Tudor and Stuart Translations 16•11 September 2017

  • ‘By editing the plays as translations, the edition’s attention to intertextuality and early modern commonplacing renews our sense of these plays’ significance in their own right, as well as in relation to the Sidney Circle, to contemporary women’s writing, and to fully theatrical dramas like Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy.’ — Peter Auger, Translation and Literature 27, 2019, 353-60 (full text online)
  • ‘Altogether, this volume is an excellent critical edition: solidly researched, sensibly organized, and practical to use. It contains a comprehensive bibliography of the most up-to-date research in both French and English and draws upon this foundation abundantly in its critical commentary. It thereby provides readers with all the background necessary to understand and appreciate the plays, highlights the wide array of questions and studies they have already inspired, and provides an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to explore them in greater depth.’ — Luke Arnason, Renaissance and Reformation 41.4, Autumn 2018, 206-208

Saint-Amant and the Theory of 'Ut Pictura Poesis'
Christopher D. Rolfe
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 6•1 January 1972

Vaugelas and the Development of the French Language
Wendy Ayres-Bennett
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 23•1 January 1987

Les Costeaux, ou les marquis frians, by Jean Donneau de Visé
Edited by Peter William Shoemaker
Critical Texts 31•1 June 2013

  • ‘Complemented with a plethora of detailed endnotes providing much detail about areas such as culinary practice (from wild-duck recipes to the oenophilic topography of France), this edition has much to offer scholars of, and all those interested in, the early modern period.’ — Paul Scott, French Studies 69, 2015, 527