Between Jest and Dream:

At once mischievous and moral, rustic and theatrical, Robin Goodfellow – the shapeshifting sprite of English folklore – stands at the crossroads of laughter, literature, and belief. This volume reintroduces The Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of Robin Goodfellow (1628-1639), the seminal chapbook that brought the household hobgoblin of oral legend into print, and explores his transformation through Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and beyond. From the enchanted woods of Shakespeare’s imagination to the bustling presses of London’s printing world, Between Jest and Dream reveal a world where fairies, witches, and jesters animated the moral and political imagination of an age poised between enchantment and reason. At its core, the volume offers a newly edited and annotated edition of The Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of Robin Goodfellow, presented here in a modernised, accessible format. Based on the surviving seventeenth-century witnesses, the edition restores the textual vitality of this once-ephemeral chapbook, providing readers and scholars alike with insight into its linguistic texture, compositorial practices, and cultural resonances within early modern print culture.

Sidia Fiorato is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Verona. Her research interests include Law and Literature, Literature and the Performing Arts, Health Humanities, Children’s Literature, Intermediality. Among her publications: Alice’s Wonderland: Performances of Identity (Peter Lang 2025) and Performing the Renaissance Body. Essays on Drama, Law and Representation (edited with John Drakakis, De Gruyter 2016).