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About this Journal

The Spenser Review is an online journal published three times each year, supported by the International Spenser Society. The Review publishes book reviews, essay-reviews and writing of various kinds on topics in and around the work of Edmund Spenser and Renaissance scholarship more generally. The writing that appears in the journal ranges from historically and textually focused scholarship to a wide array of theoretical, experimental, collaborative, exploratory, and playful forms of writing. The mission of the journal is to complement, reflect and provoke exciting work being undertaken on (and adjacent to) Spenser's writings and the work of other Renaissance figures, and the changing intellectual, pedagogical, cultural and institutional structures in which they are read.


The Spenser Review was founded in 1969–70 by Elizabeth Bieman and A. Kent Hieatt, and was originally published from the University of Western Ontario, with the endorsement of the Renaissance Society of America. Until 2001 its title was Spenser Newsletter. In 2013, David Lee Miller at the University of South Carolina saw the journal from print to digital publication. In 2013, the International Spenser Society restructured the journal’s management and format, and it has continued to develop under subsequent editors, becoming a widely recognized hub for a wide variety of Spenserian and other Renaissance engagements.

  • Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

    Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue


Article


"Book Review Issue": Letter from the Editors

"Book Review Issue": Letter from the Editors

Jeff Dolven, Kasey Evans and Claire M. Falck

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Book Reviews


Kevin Killeen,  The Unknowable in Early Modern Thought: Natural Philosophy and the Poetics of the Ineffable

Kevin Killeen, The Unknowable in Early Modern Thought: Natural Philosophy and the Poetics of the Ineffable

Janet Clare

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Elizabeth Hodgson, The Masculinities of John Milton: Cultures and Constructs of Manhood in the Major Works

Elizabeth Hodgson, The Masculinities of John Milton: Cultures and Constructs of Manhood in the Major Works

Katharine Cleland

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Kimberly Ann Coles, Bad Humor: Race and Religious Essentialism in Early Modern England

Kimberly Ann Coles, Bad Humor: Race and Religious Essentialism in Early Modern England

Eli Cumings

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Peter Herman,  Early Modern Others: Resisting Bias in Renaissance Literature

Peter Herman, Early Modern Others: Resisting Bias in Renaissance Literature

Bethan Davies

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Katherine Calloway,  Literature and Natural Theology in Early Modern England

Katherine Calloway, Literature and Natural Theology in Early Modern England

Brent Dawson

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Joseph Campana,  Shakespeare's Once and Future Child: Speculations on Sovereignty

Joseph Campana, Shakespeare's Once and Future Child: Speculations on Sovereignty

Hillary Eklund

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Elizabeth D. Harvey and Timothy M. Harrison,  John Donne's Physics

Elizabeth D. Harvey and Timothy M. Harrison, John Donne's Physics

Claire Falck

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Mary Ellen Lamb, Garth Bond, and Steven W. May, eds., The Poems of William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke

Mary Ellen Lamb, Garth Bond, and Steven W. May, eds., The Poems of William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke

Andrew Hadfield

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Matthew Hunter, The Pursuit of Style in Early Modern Drama: Forms of Talk on the London Stage

Matthew Hunter, The Pursuit of Style in Early Modern Drama: Forms of Talk on the London Stage

Jess Landis

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Patricia Wareh, Courteous exchanges: Spenser’s and Shakespeare’s gentle dialogues with readers and audiences

Patricia Wareh, Courteous exchanges: Spenser’s and Shakespeare’s gentle dialogues with readers and audiences

Vincent Mennella

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue

Jonathan Baldo and Isabel Karremann, eds., Memory and Affect in Shakespeare’s England

Jonathan Baldo and Isabel Karremann, eds., Memory and Affect in Shakespeare’s England

Peter J. Smith

2025-03-19 Volume 55 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Book Review Issue