This volume provides the first transnational overview of the relationship between translation and the book trade in early modern Europe. Following an introduction to the theories and practices of translation in early modern Europe, and to the role played by translated books in driving and defining the trade in printed books, each chapter focuses on a different aspect of translated-book history - language learning, audience, printing, marketing, and censorship - across several national traditions. This study touches on a wide range of early modern figures who played myriad roles in the book world; many of them also performed these roles in different countries and languages. Topics treated include printers' sensitivity to audience demand; paratextual and typographical techniques for manipulating perception of translated texts; theories of readership that travelled across borders; and the complex interactions between foreign-language teachers, teaching manuals, immigration, diplomacy, and exile.

After its first known edition in 1499, La Celestina immediately became an international bestseller. The tragicomic love affair of Calisto and Melibea-brought about by the old bawd Celestina and the squalid underworld over which she presides-conjures up a social landscape dominated by anomie and change. The moral ambiguity that emanates from its realistic dialogues and urban prose style also constitutes one of its most remarkable achievements. The purpose of this edition is to facilitate access to Mabbe's translation in a modernized text. The introduction provides a succinct account of its Castilian origins and English reception as part of international networks of exchange. These networks included cultural agents engaged in the establishment of vernacular canons through the appropriation of alien literary capital. As they did so, these national traditions also sought to homogenize their respective linguistic communities into a commonwealth of speakers that could be used for the establishment of a comprehensive polity upon a common body of laws and social norms. As a forerunner of the picaresque-which also addresses the language and values that regulate the relations between self and society-The Spanish Bawd exposes the paradoxes of self-interest as the keystone for a life in common

After its first known edition in 1499, La Celestina immediately became an international bestseller. The tragicomic love affair of Calisto and Melibea-brought about by the old bawd Celestina and the squalid underworld over which she presides-conjures up a social landscape dominated by anomie and change. The moral ambiguity that emanates from its realistic dialogues and urban prose style also constitutes one of its most remarkable achievements. The purpose of this edition is to facilitate access to Mabbe's translation in a modernized text. The introduction provides a succinct account of its Castilian origins and English reception as part of international networks of exchange. These networks included cultural agents engaged in the establishment of vernacular canons through the appropriation of alien literary capital. As they did so, these national traditions also sought to homogenize their respective linguistic communities into a commonwealth of speakers that could be used for the establishment of a comprehensive polity upon a common body of laws and social norms. As a forerunner of the picaresque-which also addresses the language and values that regulate the relations between self and society-The Spanish Bawd exposes the paradoxes of self-interest as the keystone for a life in common. Jose Maria Perez Fernandez is senior lecturer in English Literature and Cultural Translation at the University of Granada

The untold story of the greatest library of the Renaissance and its creator Hernando Colon This engaging book offers the first comprehensive account of the extraordinary projects of Hernando Colon, son of Christopher Columbus, which culminated in the creation of the greatest library of the Renaissance, with ambitions to be universal--that is, to bring together copies of every book, on every subject and in every language. Perez Fernandez and Wilson-Lee situate Hernando's projects within the rapidly changing landscape of early modern knowledge, providing a concise history of the collection of information and the origins of public libraries, examining the challenges he faced and the solutions he devised. The two authors combine "meticulous research with deep and original thought," shedding light on the history of libraries and the organization of knowledge. The result is an essential reference text for scholars of the early modern period, and for anyone interested in the expansion and dissemination of information and knowledge.