Alani Hicks-Bartlett, Brown University:
"Walter deftly analyzes the divestment of women’s power that curtails women’s speech and agency, and foregrounds key moments of resistance wherein women’s voices are heard."
Pamela Allen Brown, University of Connecticut :
"Theoretically engaged and full of insightful readings, this book makes a vital contribution to scholarship […] in the study of Shakespeare and early modern drama in general."
Flavia Palma, University of Verona:
"Melissa Walter’s The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines is useful reading for scholars and students interested in the relationship between Shakespeare’s comedies and the Italian novella tradition. The book is well structured and informed."
Goran Stanivukovic, Saint Mary’s University:
"This thoroughly researched book is both a critical assessment of the connection between the Italian novella and Shakespeare’s comedy and an analysis of Shakespeare’s creation of the female comic character."
Rhodri Lewis, Princeton University:
"Walter’s book is an impressive achievement."
Robert Henke, Department of Arts and Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis:
"Nothing else so comprehensive and insightful exists on the crucial topic of Shakespeare and the Italian novellas. This book will be an invaluable aid to scholars and learners for quite some time."
Eric Nicholson, Humanities and Social Sciences, Syracuse University Florence:
"The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines fulfills an overdue need for an in-depth, comprehensive, and critically well-informed study of its transnational topic, one of crucial importance for understanding the reception as well as formation of the female protagonists of Shakespeare’s comedies."
Maria Galli Stampino, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Miami:
"The richness of Shakespeare’s works is such that we have not remotely exhausted it. With a firm command of the most recent critical works concerning both Shakespeare and the novella tradition, this book will find a natural audience with scholars of early modernism, English and Italian literature specialists, and comparatists. A superb work!"
