Franco Marucci is a former Professor of English at the Universities of Siena, Florence and Venice Ca’ Foscari. His publications include Il senso interrotto. Autonomia e codificazione nella poesia di Dylan Thomas (1976), The Fine Delight that Fathers Thought: Rhetoric and Medievalism in Gerard Manley Hopkins (1994), L’inchiostro del mago. Saggi di letteratura inglese dell’Ottocento (2009) and Joyce (2013). His Storia della letteratura inglese in eight volumes was published by Le Lettere / Editoriale Srl, 2003–2018. As a creative writer he is the author of Pentapoli (2011), followed by Il Michelin del sacro (2012). He runs the blog , with comments and features on literature and music, and a weekly sports page.

«Franco Marucci’s History of English Literature is unique in its field. There is no other book that combines such erudition and authority in such a compact format. An indispensable work of reference.» (J.B. Bullen, Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College, Oxford)Praise for the Italian edition:«Franco Marucci’s Italian-language History of English Literature comes from one of the major Italian scholars in the field, and displays a quite extraordinary range and diversity. Here is information in depth for almost every taste and theoretical viewpoint, with ample guidance for any Italian seeking to find a path through the complexities of a literature in the process of turning itself from national debates into a world-wide culture. An extraordinary achievement!» (Stephen Prickett, Regius Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Glasgow, and an Honorary Professor of the University of Kent, at Canterbury)«Professor Marucci’s achievement is a beautiful and most useful one. After affording a store-house of historical and bibliographical information concerning XIXth century English literature, he now – [like] a new Virgil! – guides us through modern times and even the unexplored bushes of contemporary literary production. Not only Italian-speaking scholars, but as well most of «Romanist» readers will be able to derive advantage from his interpretation of our nearest culture.» (Dominique Millet-Gérard, Professeur de Littérature français et comparée á l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne)«The History of English Literature Franco Marucci is completing in Italian is a unique enterprise. A massive seven-volume work, it is the opus of a single scholar of renown in his country and at home with everything English, and a splendidly argued narrative of the long journey of literature in the English language in all its main thoroughfares and byroads from the times of Beowulf to the end of the second millennium. It contains new canons and quite a few surprises, and I would have no hesitation in recommending it to my British and American colleagues.» (Piero Boitani, FBA, Professor at Sapienza University of Rome)

• CONTENTS: The Formation of a National Literature - Placing Old English literature in the canon - English history to 1066 - Bede - Old English poetry - Beowulf - The Middle English Period - English history from 1066 to 1485 - Genres and «matters» - The Arthurian romances: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Layamon - Ricardian literature - The influence of the Roman de la Rose - Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Gower - Langland - Chaucer - The English Chaucerians: Hoccleve, Lydgate, Hawes - Barclay - Skelton - Fifteenth-century Scottish literature - The Scottish Chaucerians: Douglas, Henryson, Dunbar – Lyndsay - Popular ballads and lyrics - Medieval drama - Fifteenth-century prose - The Paston Letters - Caxton - Malory - The Sixteenth Century - England under the Tudors - The English Reformation - English humanism and the Renaissance - More - Conduct books - The Miscellanies - Wyatt – Surrey - The Mirror for Magistrates - Gascoigne - Other minor poets - Elizabethan Catholic poets - Sidney - Greville - Spenser - Ralegh, Wotton - Thomas Campion - Drayton – Daniel - Other sonneteers and pastoral poets - Davies and Davies of Hereford - Hall – Donne - Puttenham - The Elizabethan Theatre - Tudor masques and interludes - Elizabethan drama: An overview - The incunabula - Udall - Bale - Gorboduc - Cambyses - Arden of Feversham - Kyd - Peele - Marlowe - Marston - Chapman - Jonson - Tourneur - Webster - Dekker - Middleton - Beaumont and Fletcher - Massinger - Ford - Thomas Heywood - Shirley -The Beginnings of Narrative Prose - The first eclectic writers – Lyly - Lodge - Greene - Nashe - Deloney - The Marprelate Tracts - Hooker - Travel literature and historical compilations.