James Mabbe or Mab (1572–1642) was an English scholar, translator, and poet, and a Fellow of

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the ...

. He was involved in translations from Spanish, notably of the

Picaresque novel The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...

by Mateo Alemán, ''Guzmán de Alfarache'', in 1622. He also translated some of the '' Novelas ejemplares'' of

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best kno ...

and, in 1631, ''Celestina, or the Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea,'' a 300-page play, or "novel in dialogue," by Fernando de Rojas. James Mabbe may also be the "I. M." who wrote the fourth

commendatory verse The epideictic oratory, also called ceremonial oratory, or praise-and-blame rhetoric, is one of the three branches, or "species" (eidē), of rhetoric as outlined in Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'', to be used to praise or blame during ceremonies. Origin ...

to the

First Folio ''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...

of Shakespeare's plays (1623), given that his friend and colleague Leonard Digges wrote the third.F. E. Halliday, ''A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964,'' Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 294.

Notes

1572 births 1642 deaths Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford English translators 17th-century translators 17th-century English poets 17th-century English male writers British Hispanists English male poets {{England-poet-stub