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© MHRA 2009
Page updated 8 March 2010

MHRA Critical Texts (ISSN 1746-1642)

The Modern Humanities Research Association's new book series aims to provide affordable critical editions of lesser-known literary texts that are out of copyright and which were not currently in print (or were difficult to obtain).

The texts are taken from the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Titles will be selected by members of the distinguished Editorial Board and edited by leading academics. There is no requirement for a subvention by authors.

The aim is to produce scholarly editions rather than teaching texts, but the potential for crossover to undergraduate reading lists is recognized. Priced at £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99 the books will appeal both to academic libraries and individual scholars. The titles are available for direct ordering worldwide online through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, et al., and through the usual trade channels (inc. Bertrams, Ingram, Baker & Taylor.) The first two volumes were published in June 2005.

Proposals are invited from prospective authors who should submit a completed Book Proposal Form. Books should be in the range of 30,000 to 50,000 words.

 

Vol. 1. Odilon Redon: Écrits.
Edited by Claire Moran.
(In French.)

ISBN 0-947623-63-9. Published June 2005.
Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This is the first edition of nine fictional writings by the French painter, Odilon Redon (1840-1916). The text has been established from a transcription made by André Mellerio (the original manuscript being unavailable).

"The most interesting recent insight into Redon and his work emerges from this slender edition of his own early writings, carefully edited and presented by Claire Moran."

Natalie Adamson, Modern Language Review, 101:4 (2006), 1131.

Further Details.

Cover of Tony Hunt volume


Vol. 2. Les Paraboles Maistre Alain en Françoys.
Edited by Tony Hunt.

ISBN 0-947623-64-7. Published June 2005.
Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

An edition of the anonymous fifteenth-century French translation of Alan of Lille’s ‘Liber Parabolarum’ which had never previously been edited. The 1492 print by Antoine Vérard survives in fewer than a dozen copies.

"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.

Further Details.

 

Vol. 3. Letzte Chancen: Vier Einakter von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.
Edited by Susanne Kord.
(In German.)

ISBN 0-947623-65-5. Published October 2005.
Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This edition will introduce readers to four virtually unknown short plays by the woman who is today considered the best-known German-speaking woman writer of the 19th century.

"Meticulously edited ... In her informative and very readable introductory essays, Kord traces Ebner-Eschenbach’s development and reception as a dramatist, and presents the individual plays in an engaging manner."

Ulrike Tanzer, Austrian Studies, 14 (2006), 355.

Further Details.

 


Vol. 4. Macht des Weibes: Zwei historische Tragödien von Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. Edited by Susanne Kord. (In German.)

ISBN 0-947623-69-8. Published December 2005.
Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

A companion volume to Letzte Chancen, this edition will introduce readers to two virtually unknown tragedies by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach: Maria Stuart in Schottland. Historische Tragödie; and Marie Roland. Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen.

"In her informative and very readable introductory essays, Kord traces Ebner-Eschenbach’s development and reception as a dramatist, and presents the individual plays in an engaging manner. The perspective is particularly illuminating and subtly differentiated in the case of the two historical tragedies, Maria Stuart in Schottland and Marie Roland."

Ulrike Tanzer, Austrian Studies, 14 (2006), 355.

Further Details.

 

Vol. 5. A Critical Edition of La tribu indienne; ou, Édouard et Stellina by Lucien Bonaparte.
Edited by Cecilia Feilla.
(In French.)

ISBN 0-947623-66-3. Published October 2006. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99 / €19.99

The publication of this novel by the younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte brings to light a fascinating lost text, making it readily available to scholars for the first time. It contributes to the recent re-evaluation of the French literary canon through consideration of key sentimental texts.

 

"This re-edition of a novel by Lucien Bonaparte, one of Napoleon’s younger brothers, is the latest in the MHRA’s admirable series of critical texts ... [It] is to be welcomed as providing a new addition to the corpus of Revolutionary literature available for study ... Cecilia Feilla’s introduction is clear and concise, dealing briefly with the author’s life and situating the novel within the tradition of sentimental exoticism."

Jennifer Yee, Modern Language Review, 103:1 (2008), 234-5.

 

"This is a fascinating reprint of the original edition including illustrations of the only novel ever written by Lucien Bonaparte ... [It] is of particular interest to anybody studying early nineteenth-century French politics."

Kirsty Carpenter, New Zealand Journal of French Studies, 29:2 (2008), 52-3.

Further Details.

 

Honess book cover

Vol. 6. Dante Alighieri: Four Political Letters.
Translated and with a commentary by Claire E. Honess.

ISBN 978-0-947623-70-8. Published October 2007. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This edition will provide a new translation and analysis of four of Dante’s Latin letters on political themes, highlighting the role of these letters not only as documents which emphasise and support the political views put forward most explicitly in the De monarchia, but also as pieces of persuasive and impassioned writing which, on many different levels, reflect the concerns of the author’s great poetic work, the Commedia.

Further Details.

 

Vol. 7. La Disme de Penitanche by Jehan de Journi.
Edited by Glynn Hesketh.

ISBN 0-947623-71-X. Published October 2006. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

The book is an annotated edition and study of La Disme de Penitanche, a manual written in Old French verse, designed to help members of the laity prepare themselves for confession. Composed in 1288 by Jehan de Journi, the text provides a fascinating mixture of the learned and the popular.

"Students of vernacular penitential texts will welcome this edition, particularly as the editor provides extensive explanatory notes, interspersed with comments of linguistic interest."

Leslie C. Brook, Modern Language Review, 103:2 (2008), 531.

Further Details.

 

Vol. 8. François II, roi de France by Charles-Jean-François Hénault.
Edited by Thomas Wynn.
(In French.)

ISBN 0-947623-67-1. Published November 2006. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

The Président Hénault (1685-1770) wrote several plays including François II, roi de France, a five-act tragedy depicting ‘la jalousie des princes de sang contre messieurs de Guise’. First published in 1747, this play was considered by Hénault and his contemporaries to be the first of a new kind of theatre, one written specifically to be read rather than to be performed. It is therefore arguably the founding text of the tradition of armchair theatre that encompasses Diderot, Rétif de la Bretonne, Musset and Hugo.

"This is a welcome edition and a particularly timely one in the context of the current reappraisal of the minores and consequent refinement of our picture of the French Enlightenment, and of the problematization of dramatic reception."

John Dunkley, Modern Language Review, 104:4 (2009), 1145.

Further Details.

 

NewVol. 9. Istoire de la Chastelaine du Vergier et de Tristan le Chevalier.
Edited by Jean-François Kosta-Théfaine.

ISBN 978-0-947623-68-5. Published July 2009. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This 15th-century text is a late prose version of the highly successful and much imitated Chastelaine de Vergi. The moral of the anonymous author's tale is that love stories need to be kept secret, and that discretion is a lover's best quality.

Further Details.

 

Dunmore book cover

Vol. 10. La Peyrouse dans l’Isle de Tahiti, ou le Danger des Présomptions: drame politique.
Edited by John Dunmore.
(In French.)

ISBN 0-947623-72-8. Published October 2006. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This anonymous play is based on two well-known episodes in Pacific exploration: the voyage of Louis de Bougainville around the world, and his arrival in Tahiti very soon after Samuel Wallis’ discovery of it, and the later voyage and disappearance of Jean-François de la Pérouse.

Further Details.

 

Casimir book cover image

Vol. 11. Casimir Britannicus. English Translations, Paraphrases, and Emulations of the Poetry of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski.
Edited by Piotr Urbański and Krzysztof Fordoński

ISBN 978-0-947623-73-9. Published May 2008. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (1595-1640) was known in his lifetime as the Christian Horace. This edition includes all known English translations of his poems. The texts are accompanied by an introduction presenting the biography and works of Sarbiewski, as well as a short critical analysis of the translations included in the volume.

"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.

 

Further Details.

 

Vol. 12. La Devineresse ou les faux enchantemens. By Jean Donneau de Visé and Thomas Corneille.
Edited by Julia Prest.
(In French.)

ISBN 978-0-947623-74-6. Published November 2007. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

A critical edition of the biggest box-office hit of seventeenth-century France whose extraordinary success depended on its historical context.

Further Details.

 

Porträt der Frau des Künstlers

Vol. 13. Phosphorus Hollunder und Der Posten der Frau von Louise von François.
Edited by Barbara Burns

ISBN 978-0-947623-75-3. Published October 2008. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

François’s novels and novellas are notable for their strong story lines, rich prose and psychological realism. The two early novellas Phosphorus Hollunder and Der Posten der Frau (both 1857) illustrate the essential preoccupations of François’s work as a whole.

Further Details.

 

Champaigne portrait of Cardinal Richelieu

Vol. 14. Le Gouvernement present, ou éloge de son Eminence, satyre ou la Miliade.
Edited by Paul Scott

ISBN 978-0-947623-77-7. Spring 2010. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This satirical poem, known popularly as the Miliade because of its thousand-verse length (in octosyllabic verse), was printed anonymously around 1636. The poem’s endurance and plentiful and specific political references make it a lively commentary encompassing discontent with the increasingly centralized government before the outbreak of the civil wars, the Frondes (1648–53).

Further Details.

Correggio painting of Venus and Cupid

 

Vol. 15. Ovide du remede d'amours.
Edited by Tony Hunt

ISBN 978-0-947623-78-4. Published February 2008. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This edition presents a hitherto unpublished version of the Remedia amoris, thus expanding the corpus of materials available to students of the transmission of Ovid in the Middle Ages. It also provides, for the first time, a detailed survey of the existing versions of the Remedia.

"This is a most carefully presented and legible edition ... The Notes themselves are rich in linguistic, literary and mythological information and useful commentary on salient translation techniques. A Glossary and Table of Proper Names complete this elegant edition."

J. Keith Atkinson, New Zealand Journal of French Studies, 30:1 (2009), 45-6.

Further Details.

Angelo Beolco

 

Vol. 16. Angelo Beolco (il Ruzante), La prima oratione.
Edited by Linda L. Carroll

ISBN 978-0-947623-79-1. Published March 2009. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This volume presents a full transcription of the three extant manuscripts of Angelo Beolco's Prima oratione, delivered to Cardinal Marco Cornaro in 1521 at his villa in Asolo subsequent to his entrance as bishop of Padua.

"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), 576-9.

Further Details.

Rewarde of Wickednesse page

 

NewVol. 17. Richard Robinson, The Rewarde of Wickednesse.
Edited by Allyna E. Ward

ISBN 978-0-947623-85-2. Published July 2009. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This volume provides the first printed critical edition of a text which has recently attracted the attention of scholars working on early modern English literature.

Further Details.

Photo of Henry Crabb Robinson

 

Vol. 18. Henry Crabb Robinson, Essays on Kant, Schelling, and German Aesthetics.
Edited by James Vigus

ISBN 978-0-947623-88-3. Spring 2010. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

It is usually assumed that the only British Romantic writer who engaged meaningfully with German philosophy was S. T. Coleridge. This edition disproves that assumption. The book collects thirteen essays and one set of lecture notes written by Henry Crabb Robinson during his period in Germany (1800-1805).

Further Details.

Giglan manuscript image

 

Vol. 19. A Sixteenth-Century Arthurian Romance: L’Hystoire de Giglan filz de messire Gauvain qui fut roy de Galles. Et de Geoffroi de Maience son compaignon.
Edited by Caroline A. Jewers

ISBN 978-0-947623-89-0. Autumn 2010. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

Giglan is an unusual prose rewriting of two important, entertaining medieval Arthurian verse romances, the late-twelfth century Le Bel inconnu of Renaut de Beaujeu, and the anonymous thirteenth-century Occitan Roman de Jaufre, one of only two full-length romans from the south. L’Hystoire was last published in Lyons in 1539, and went through at least five editions in the first three decades of the century.

Further Details.

Le Paradis perdu

 

NewVol. 20. Evariste-Désiré de Parny, Le Paradis perdu.
Edited by Ritchie Robertson and Catriona Seth

ISBN 978-0-947623-90-6. Published July 2009. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

Evariste-Désiré de Parny, though largely forgotten now, was well known in the nineteenth century for his lyric poems, especially the Poésies Erotiques (1778-81), and the prose-poems in Chansons Madécasses (1787). He also wrote much humorous verse, including the anti-religious La Guerre des Dieux (1799) and Le Paradis perdu (1805). The latter is a parody of Milton’s Paradise Lost in four relatively short cantos. It gives a central place to the War in Heaven, casting Satan as a revolutionary. It is highly entertaining in itself, and also an important example of parody as critical response to an original text.

Further Details.

 

Mme de Genlis portrait

 

Vol. 21. Stéphanie de Genlis, ‘Histoire de la duchesse de C***’ .
Edited by Mary S. Trouille

ISBN 978-0-947623-95-1. Summer 2010. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

The Histoire de la Duchesse de C*** is a masterful blend of the sentimental and the Gothic genres. This critical edition is accompanied by an introduction to the text and author, a selected bibliography, and an original modern English translation of the text.

Further Details.

Image of title page of 'Le Cosmopolite'

 

Vol. 22. Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron, Le Cosmopolite, ou le citoyen du monde (1750).
Edited by Édouard Langille

ISBN 978-1-907322-04-4. Spring 2010. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

A critical edition of Fougeret de Monbron’s Le Cosmopolite, ou le citoyen du monde (1750). The introductory notes focus on the links to Voltaire’s Candide and show how Monbron’s cynical memoirs combined with another important narrative source of Candide, La Place’s Histoire de Tom Jones, ou l’enfant trouvé (1750).

Further Details.

 

Illustration from 'La Chastelaine'

 

Vol. 23. La Chastelaine du Vergier. Livre d’amours du Chevalier et de la Dame Chastellaine du Vergier.
Edited by Jean-François Kosta-Théfaine

ISBN 978-1-907322-05-1. Spring 2011. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

A critical edition of the 1540 version of the Chastelaine de Vergi story. Like the original 13th-century text, this verse telling sets out to teach the lesson that love stories are best kept secret.

Further Details.

Illustration from 'La Chastelaine'

 

Vol. 24. Narcisse Berchère, Le Désert de Suez: cinq mois dans l'Isthme.
Edited by Barbara Wright

ISBN 978-1-907322-10-5. Spring 2010. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

Narcisse Berchère was commissioned by Ferdinand de Lesseps to make a visual record of the first phase of the construction of the Suez Canal. To this end, he spent five months in the Isthmus, from November 1861 to March 1862. He also gave a verbal account of his experiences in a book, published by Jules Hetzel in 1863, an edition of which is presented here.
       

Further Details.

Casimir book cover image

 

Vol. 25. Casimir Britannicus. English Translations, Paraphrases, and Emulations of the Poetry of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski. Revised and expanded edition.
Edited by Piotr Urbański and Krzysztof Fordoński

ISBN 978-1-907322-12-9. Spring 2010. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (1595-1640) was known in his lifetime as the Christian Horace. This edition includes all known English translations of his poems. The texts are accompanied by an introduction presenting the biography and works of Sarbiewski, as well as a short critical analysis of the translations included in the volume. (Expanded edition of Critical Texts Vol. 11)

Further Details.

Madame de Souza

 

Vol. 26. Eugénie et Mathilde by Madame de Souza.
Edited by Kirsty Carpenter

ISBN 978-1-907322-13-6. Summer 2011. Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

The purpose of this book is to make available to scholars and students the most important of Madame de Souza’s novels in a way that the French Revolution or political context could be fully understood alongside the literary and social references within the text.

Further Details.

 

 

  

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Latest Publications

Cover of Angelo Beolco, 'La prima oratione'

Istoire de la Chastelaine du Vergier et de Tristan le Chevalier

 

Cover of 'The Rewarde of Wickednesse'

Richard Robinson, The Rewarde of Wickednesse

 

Cover of Angelo Beolco, 'La prima oratione'

Evariste-Désiré de Parny, Le Paradis perdu

 

 


Further Information: