Recent Reviews of MHRA Books

MHRA books are regularly reviewed in scholarly journals across the world, and sometimes also in literary papers such as the Times Literary Supplement. From time to time, our books also appear in Europe’s newspapers, from The Independent and the Daily Telegraph to El Imparcial and Gazeta Shqiptare. The following excerpts are from the 20 most recently received reviews:

  • George Chapman, The Shadow of Night & Ovid’s Banquet of Sense — Edited by Zenón Luis-Martínez, ‘A comprehensive, original and richly annotated edition. [...] Luis-Martínez’s critical edition of George Chapman’s early poetic work is outstanding not only for the extent of its support material, but also for the clarity and coherence of its argumentation. [...] Without simplifying the complexity of the verse, Luis-Martínez restores difficulty to its rightful place as the poet’s deliberate choice, offering modern readers a Chapman who is challenging, but also innovative and well established among his Elizabethan peers.’ — Dana Percec, British and American Studies 32, 2026, 331-35 (full text online)
  • The First English Pastor Fido — Edited by Massimiliano Morini, ‘A significant intervention in the study of early modern translation, reception, and theatrical culture. [...] Morini has made the text highly readable, [...] clarifying obsolete words and expressions with a great number of very useful critical notes. [...] The First English ‘Pastor Fido’ should be read not only as a critical edition but also as a case study in the historiography of translation. [...] This volume is indispensable for scholars of early modern translation, comparative literature, and cultural poetics.’ — Emanuel Stelzer, Cahiers Élisabéthains 118.1, 2025, 229–32 (full text online)
  • Standing at the Crossroads: Stories of Doubt in Renaissance Italy — Marco Faini, ‘Il dubbio dunque come parte di una cultura segreta, nascosta, tramandata carsicamente dal Rinascimento di inizio secolo al mondo della Controriforma globale. Il dubbio in fondo come strumento per conoscere, avvicinare e assimilare il diverso, l'altro per eccellenza: in tal senso metodi nuovi di conversione come l'accomodatio formulata da Valignano e da altri gesuiti italiani in Estremo Oriente non sarebbero altro che il frutto di questa cultura del dubbio germogliata nell'Italia di Machiavelli e Castiglione.’ — Guillaume Alonge, Immagini e testi per l’Europa del Rinascimento 2/2025, 2025, 209-16 (full text online)
  • Intermedia in Italy: From Futurism to Digital Convergence — Clodagh Brook, Florian Mussgnug and Giuliana Pieri, Giorgia Alù, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies 14.1, 2026, 138-41 (full text online)
  • Intermedia in Italy: From Futurism to Digital Convergence — Clodagh Brook, Florian Mussgnug and Giuliana Pieri, ‘A pivotal and authoritative contribu-tion to the field of Intermedia Studies, opening up new avenues for inquiry and inspiring future research.’ — María Emilia Muñoz, Status Quaestionis 27, 2024, 437-40 (full text online)
  • Intermedia in Italy: From Futurism to Digital Convergence — Clodagh Brook, Florian Mussgnug and Giuliana Pieri, ‘In conclusione, Intermedia in Italy offre una mappatura rigorosa, articolata e innovativa delle pratiche intermediali italiane del Novecento e del Duemila, proponendosi come testo di riferimento per studiosi interessati a esplorare le intersezioni tra letteratura, arti visive, cinema, studi culturali e media studies. Non solo colma una lacuna nella storiografia culturale italiana, ma fornisce altresì una piattaforma teorica e metodologica preziosa per ripensare i modi di analisi e di trasmissione della cultura artistica nell’epoca della convergenza digitale.’ — Margherita Cerri, Narrativa 47, 2025, 230-231
  • Intermedia in Italy: From Futurism to Digital Convergence — Clodagh Brook, Florian Mussgnug and Giuliana Pieri, ‘This book will be indispensable to scholars of avant-garde, hybridity, and digital culture, and it sets an agenda for further research on how Italian media practices intersect with global debates.’ — Clara Ramazzotti, Modern Language Review 121.3, 2026, 451-52 (full text online)
  • Walter Benjamin’s Calderón: Literary Criticism and the Baroque — Jacobo de Camps, ‘Crucially, however, Walter Benjamin’s Calderón uses the opportunity not simply to answer its own contextual question, but also to carry through an original piece of literary criticism. In addition, the book presents a profoundly comparative perspective on the theme of Benjamin’s Baroque which for far too long was an object of uncritical reverence or tired surrender in the face of its labyrinthine use of esoteric quotations.’ — Rasmus Vangshardt, Modern Language Review 121.3, 2026, 453-55 (full text online)
  • Italo Calvino and Japan: A Journey through the Shallow Depths of Signs — Claudia Dellacasa, ‘While Calvino’s encounters with Paris or the United States of America have been more extensively discussed, his Japanese journey has remained a rather marginal episode in Calvino Studies. Dellacasa’s book corrects that imbalance through rigorous philological scrutiny, careful textual analysis, and a sophisticated critical framework, offering a substantial contribution not only to Calvino scholarship but also to studies of Italian–Japanese cultural relations in the twentieth century.’ — Ida Duretto, Modern Language Review 121.3, 2026, 447-49 (full text online)
  • Regionalisms and Resistance in the Twentieth-Century Portuguese Novel: Spatialized Ideologies — Peter Haysom-Rodríguez, ‘This timely and meticulously constructed monograph stands as a valuable addition to scholarship on the twentieth-century Portuguese novel... Many more sharp and stimulating insights can be found in this monograph, which is sure to appeal to scholars and students of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century novel and its relationship to regionalist politics of landscape and community.’ — Anna M. Klobucka, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 2026, 12-14 (full text online)
  • Francisco Delicado, Retrato de la Loçana andaluza: Estudio y edición crítica — Edited by Rocío Díaz Bravo, ‘Esta edición de la profesora Díaz Bravo vuelve a recuperar y nos acerca a una de las joyas de la época áurea de nuestra literatura. Nos ofrece una mirada lingüís-tica, dirigida a aquellos para los que la historia de la lengua y las variedades del español son un campo conocido en el que seguir ahondando. Gracias a este estu-dio del Retrato de la Loçana andaluza nos adentramos en la Roma del siglo xvi y asistimos a un cuadro multicultural, colmado de distintas lenguas y analizado con verdadera admiración.’ — Sara Hernández Fernández, Edad de oro 38, 2019, 385-87
  • Building Modern Jewish Culture: The Yiddish Kultur-Lige — Edited by Harriet L. Murav, Gennady Estraikh and Myroslav Shkandrij, ‘The volume features studies not only illuminating an array of important topics but also introducing novel primary sources from Ukrainian, French, Romanian, and American archives. There is also an important analysis of the available sources – for example, in chapters by Lyudmila Sholokhova and Mayhill C. Fowler. The volume should be of interest to everyone in- terested in the complex intersection of cultures, nations, and radical left movements.’ — Kostiantyn Moharychev, Ab imperio 26, 2025, 265-69
  • Engaging with Troy: Early Modern and Contemporary Scenes — Edited by Francesca Rayner and Janice Valls-Russell, ‘This is a capacious collection, and the range of the essays it contains is extraordinary, taking us from the most famous conflict of the ancient world to our own war-torn century (and also, appropriately enough, offering a mix of old and new voices on the subject). Each essay is like a little gem, and though there could never be a one-stop shop for all that Troy has meant and means, this volume comes close.’ — Lisa Hopkins, Cahiers Élisabéthains 119.1, 2026, 152-55
  • Film Comedy and Spain: Humour, Genre, and the Nation 1970-2020 — Matthew Hilborn, ‘A significant contribution to the study of Spanish cinema, humour, and national identity. By tracing how comedy has both mirrored and shaped Spain’s political transformations, the book demonstrates that humour is not merely entertainment but a cultural barometer revealing deep-seating anxieties, aspirations, and contradictions. [...] Hilborn not only maps the past fifty years of Spanish film comedy but also provides essential tools for interpreting its future directions.’ — Carmen Maíz-Arévalo, European Journal of Humour Research 14.1, 2026, 234-37
  • Diaspora Reads: Community, Identity, and Russian Literaturocentrism — Angelos Theocharis, ‘This study opens a window onto the dynamics of cultural exchange, showing how Russian-speaking communities navigate questions of identity amid crisis and global uncertainty. It is a subtle and carefully observed account of how reading practices sustain and reshape collective identity in diaspora. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of Russian literary studies and cultural sociology, and to anyone concerned with the intersections of language and belonging in transnational contexts.’ — Iana Moskalenko, Slavonic and East European Review 103.4, 2026, 771-73 (full text online)
  • The Tremors of Translation: An Edition of Voltaire's Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (1756) — Clive Scott, ‘For scholars of literature and translation, rich reflections are served up, alongside intensely brilliant close poetic analysis... The most engaging element of this book remains Scott’s own conversational tone, with which he steers readers through a vast spread of erudite discussion, tossing about ideas, doodling and brainstorming to disrupt, provoke, shake, and deconstruct expectations.’ — Siofre Pierse, Modern Language Review 121.2, 2026, 276-77 (full text online)
  • The Integrity of the Avant-Garde: Karel Teige and the Biography of an Ambition — Peter Zusi, ‘Peter Zusi's book is an extremely noteworthy, focused and conceptually dense achievement that deepens our critical understanding of the significance of Karel Teige. [...] Zusi's view on Teige, his work and his significance is original and enlightening by no means only for foreign scholars interested in the Czech avant-garde. One can only hope the book will soon be published in Czech.’ — Josek Vojvodík, Umění 73.1, 2025, 82-85
  • Italo Calvino and Japan: A Journey through the Shallow Depths of Signs — Claudia Dellacasa, ‘Nella critica dell’opera di Calvino, il libro di Claudia Dellacasa è senza dubbio una novità. In contrapposizione a un approccio critico collegato a correnti critiche radicate nello strutturalismo e nel poststrutturalismo o in categorie di storia letteraria come modernismo epostmodernismo, Dellacasa incentra la sua critica su tematiche transculturali, ecologiche e post-o oltre-umane, campi di ricerca ai quali lei stessa ha contribuito con diverse pubblicazioni. Il libro infatti offre un’alternativa aggiornata ai diversi profili che si sono configurati nella critica dell’opera calviniana: un Calvino neo-realista, un Calvino strutturalista o poststrutturalista, un Calvino postmodernista e un Calvino semiologo d’ispirazione barthesiana e greimasiana. La studiosa dimostra che, nell’ultimo Calvino, queste correnti di pensiero teorico e critico tendono ad una semiotica ispirata a Peirce e a Eco, accanto a idee collegate alla filosofia del pensiero debole. In questo contesto sono state decisive sia l’esperienza di v’ — Ulla Musarra-Schrøder, Incontri 39.2, 2024, 137–139 (full text online)
  • Italo Calvino and Japan: A Journey through the Shallow Depths of Signs — Claudia Dellacasa, ‘By turning the spotlight on Calvino's encounter with Japan, Dellacasa's study aligns with contemporary world-literature approaches that trace how literary ideas circulate across borders, yet it also breaks new ground with its blend of ecomaterialist and posthumanist methodology. [...] Scholars of world literature will find Dellacasa's approach exemplary in its blend of close reading, theory, and cultural context. Italo Calvino and Japan makes a significant contribution to Calvino studies, offering new insights into the author's late oeuvre and the global dimensions of his imagination. By foregrounding Japan, Dellacasa uncovers connections and thematic developments in Calvino's work that had previously been underappreciated.’ — Ortensio Lando, Forum Italicum 2025 (full text online)
  • Staging Germanness in Contemporary British Theatre — Joseph Prestwich, ‘A thoughtful and considered study of contemporary Anglo-German theatrical exchange. Prestwich is extensive in his approach to the productions studied and engaging in his analysis. This text tells us much about the complex relations between the two states at theatrical and political levels and represents an important contribution to Anglophone scholarship on German theatre culture.’ — Richard McClelland, Comparative Drama 59.4, Winter 2025, 183-185 (full text online)