Although ostensibly a book about Dante Alighieri’s (d.1321) Divine Comedy, the focus of the book was looking at how Dante was read, through the lenses of the early twentieth century writers: Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams and CS Lewis.

Each of those authors has written many works, and each has been a subject of their own individual biographies and literary analyses. Putting them all together and looking at how they read and commented upon each other’s readings of Dante is an inspired idea for a book. It led to some fascinating examples of how they responded to each other, especially CS Lewis’ comments upon Sayers translation of Dante.

For readers unfamiliar with the works and interests of Sayers, Williams and Lewis, it would have been helpful to provide a little more background information about them in the Introduction. Their characters and perspectives do begin to come through, as the book gradually unfolds, but for a better appreciation of the earlier chapters of this book, readers may find it helpful to scan an online biography of those figures, before opening the book.

One particularly welcome aspect of the book is that it is fairly liberal in its quoting and referencing of Dante, so the book provides some helpful insights into Dante himself. However, in chapter 2 the book comments on Sayer’s translation of Dante, making comparisons with other translations. The force of the points is inevitably lost for readers who are not familiar with the translations of Sayers, and others. It would have been helpful to provide the occasional example, placing Sayers translation alongside one of those other translations, so that readers can see for themselves what aspects are being praised or critiqued, and precisely how they are different.

It wasn’t entirely clear to me who the ideal readership of this book is. The referencing and quoting, as well as some of the abstruse analogies and comparisons, gives the impression that this is a firmly academic book which is intended for university students and those with specialist interests. But then in places occasional comments seem to imply that the book is targeted at a less specialist readership. For example, chapter 4 encourages readers to skip that particularly analysis of ‘allegory,’ if it seems too boring.

It is a brave author who is content to put the word ‘boring’ into the mind of readers. It reinforces the question of who are those expected readers, and why does the book contain material which they might find boring? Wouldn’t it have been better to target a specific readership and to ensure that all the chapters were appropriately written to be not-boring for that specific readership?

Overall, a great idea for a book, with some interesting insights on the twentieth century reading of an outstanding medieval poem, but perhaps more clarity about the intended readership could have helped sharpen the content of the book in places.

(These are honest comments on a free ARC digital version of the text).

This author’s enthusiasm and love for his chosen study is intense and infectious. Anyone who reads this book must also watch the 3 lectures by Richard H Gibson as part of the Hansen Lectures Series. Not only is he so knowledgeable but he’ also presents his lectures full of humour. He totally engages with his readers and listeners.
I can’t wait to buy a physical copy of this book and start annotating. This book is a definite KEEPER!

4.5 ⭐️ rounded up. I enjoyed reading this book! It is more academic in nature than I anticipated as it reads less like a novel and more like a textbook. Although the writing style was more formal, it was still easy to read and understand. Additionally, it may be helpful to know up front that the author heavily quotes other authors, which made sense given the synopsis. I held back 0.5 ⭐️ because at 39 pages, the introduction felt far too lengthy and its length made me a bit reluctant to dive in when I finally arrived at chapter 1. Overall, I recommend giving this book a go!