Dante: The Essential Commedia

“At last, the greatest of all Italian poets and everything you need to know about him in one fat volume of lucidity and lightly worn learning.” – Howard Jacobson - New Statesman, ‘Books of the Year 2025’
“The Essential Commedia isn’t a standard translation but a radically abridged version of the text, with chunks of the poem (in Italian and in Shaw’s translation) set like jewels into a running commentary made up of narrative bridges, historical context, interpretation, and occasional witty asides. It all fits into one volume… and Shaw—a first-rate British Dante scholar—provides a momentum of her own.” – Claudia Roth Pierpont - The New Yorker
“Those who have previously quailed or failed before the Commedia—those parallel texts, the million notes, the intricacies of Florentine politics—will relish Prue Shaw’s new version. It cleverly runs its commentary in and out of the text, and (whisper it quietly) is not afraid to cut or summarize the boring bits. And for the first time, I understood the Paradiso.” – Julian Barnes

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 in Florence to a family of minor nobility. He entered into Florentine politics in 1295, but he and his party were forced into exile in a hostile political climate in 1301. Taking asylum in Ravenna late in life, Dante completed his Divine Commedia, considered one of the most important works of Western literature, before his death in 1321.

Prue Shaw is an emeritus reader in Italian at University College London. She is the editor of the edizione nazionale of Dante’s medieval Latin treatise Monarchia and of a groundbreaking digital edition of the Commedia. She lives in Cambridge, England.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.