Edited by Lorna Hutson, Merton Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford

Lorna Hutson is Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. Educated in San Francisco, Edinburgh, and Oxford, she has taught at the Universities of St Andrews, UC Berkeley, Hull, and Queen Mary, London. She has served as Head of English at St Andrews (2008-11) and has held fellowships from the Folger, the Huntingdon, the Guggenheim, and the Leverhulme Trust. Her books include Thomas Nashe in Context (1989), The Usurer's Daughter (1994), and The Invention of Suspicion (2007). Circumstantial Shakespeare (2015) was based on the Oxford Wells Shakespeare Lectures in 2012. She has also edited Ben Jonson's Discoveries (1641) for the Cambridge Complete Works of Ben Jonson (2012) and written numerous articles on Renaissance topics.

Alastair Bellany, Rutgers University
Martin Butler, University of Leeds
Alan Cromartie, University of Reading
Frances E. Dolan, University of California, Davis
Martin Dzelzainis, University of Leicester
Kathy Eden, Columbia University
Peter Goodrich, Cardozo School of Law
Paul D. Halliday, University of Virginia
Edward Holberton, University of Bristol
Robert Allan Houston, University of St Andrews
Daniel Hulsebosch, NYU School of Law
Lorna Hutson, University of Oxford
David Ibbetson, University of Cambridge
Norma Landau, University of California, Davis
James McBain, University of Fribourg
Margaret McGlynn, Western University
Bernadette Meyler, Stanford University
Mary Nyquist, University of Toronto
Joshua Phillips, University of Memphis
Paul Raffield, University of Warwick
Joad Raymond, Queen Mary University of London
Jason P. Rosenblatt, Georgetown University
Carolyn Sale, University of Alberta
Ethan H. Shagan, University of California, Berkeley
Barbara J Shapiro, University of California, Berkeley
James Sharpe, University of York
Quentin Skinner, Queen Mary University of London
Nigel Smith, Princeton University
Virginia Strain, Loyola University of Chicago
Tim Stretton, Saint Mary's University
Henry S. Turner, Rutgers University
Elliott Visconsi, University of Notre Dame
Christopher N. Warren, Carnegie Mellon University
Ian Williams, University College London
Jessica Winston, Idaho State University
Andrew Zurcher, University of Cambridge

Winner of the 2017 Roland H. Bainton Reference Book Prize, awarded by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (SCSC).

"The contributions to this collection are consistently outstanding" - Feisal G. Mohamed, CUNY, Renaissance Quarterly

"With its compelling reading of The Merchant of Venice, its rigorous research, and its clarity of style, Skinner's chapter shines as an exemplar of the very best of Shakespearean scholarship." - Louise Powell, The English Association

"Lorna Hutson's magisterial Oxford Handbook of English Law and Literature, 1500-1700 seeks to interrogate the 'ménage a trois' between law, literature, and history...The sections of the volume deliberately juxtapose chapters by authors from different disciplines to generate further cross-pollination." - Harriet Archer, The English Association

"While The Oxford Handbook of English Law and Literature, 1500-1700, might be-come the go-to text for an undergraduate seeking to understand the early modern beginnings of slander as a criminal offense or the concept of 'assumpsit', each subset of essays, organized within the eight parts of this volume, provides a lush opportunity for researchers to enjoy expanded parameters of early modern legal ideas and the plays, poems, and pamphlets that register these concepts. The bibliographies that conclude each essay of this 800-page tome make this text a bargain." - Katherine M. Conway, The Review of English Studies

"The Oxford Handbook of English Law and Literature offers a representative and stimulating snapshot of what the collective discussion looks like at this moment in time [...] Readers who want a sense of the possibilities that law opens up for thinking about literature and vice versa can benefit greatly from these essays [...] The volume offers its greatest reward for the reader willing to work through all of the essays since there is a synergy and a potentiality here that can be grasped only when one arrives at the end and turns to survey the full expanse of terrain crossed." - Alison A. Chapman, University of Alabama at Birmingham, in Milton Quarterly

"Constructively posing some of the most challenging questions animating the study of law and literature, The Oxford Handbook of English Law and Literature, 1500-1700 is a critical resource for any scholar of the field." - Katherine Walker (University of North Carolina), The British Society for Literature and Science

"This volume is commendable for both its breadth of topics and depth of learning (and for the bibliographies!). It should serve both as a valuable reminder of where the law and literature movement came from and as an early indication of where it is heading." - Gregory Kneidel, H-Net