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The two forthcoming volumes of Marvell Studies, guest-edited by Jean-Jacques Chardin, Professor of Early Modern Literature at the Université de Strasbourg, and Laurent Curelly, Senior Lecturer in British Studies at the Université de Haute Alsace – Mulhouse, and due to be published in the spring and in the fall of 2017, will explore Andrew Marvell’s interaction with European culture and politics. They follow up on an international conference hosted by the Université de Strasbourg and the Université de Haute Alsace in June 2016 and sponsored by the Andrew Marvell Society.

A full understanding of Andrew Marvell’s verse and prose writings requires an appreciation of their European context. Marvell himself travelled to the European Continent repeatedly: between 1642-3 and 1647 he visited Holland, France, Italy and Spain; in 1655-6 he stayed at the Protestant Academy at Saumur, France, with Oliver Cromwell’s ward, William Dutton; in 1662 to 1663 he was in Holland on state business; and between 1663 and 1665 he was part of the Earl of Carlisle’s embassy to Muscovy, Sweden, and Denmark. Contemporary events, such as the three Anglo-Dutch wars of the mid-century, afforded him ample material for his satires and prose polemics, and early modern European literature more widely – such as the work of the libertins érudits – deeply informed his poems and prose. The first issue, ‘Marvell, Europe and Cultural Negotiations’, will look at the way literary exchanges and cultural transfers in Europe impacted on Marvell’s poetry and prose. The second issue, ‘Marvell, Europe and Social Negotiations’, will discuss Marvell’s involvement in political and social interactions on the European continent.