A boutique literary imprint

Rediscovered.
Translated.
Reimagined.

Beautiful new editions of overlooked European fiction.

Explore our titles

Publishing 15 September  ·  Espresso Italian Classics

Marta, or Faith

Francesco Mastriani  ·  Translated and introduced by Idara Crespi

Pre-order paperback direct — $35.99 Pre-order Kindle

$25 or more, 20% off with code EPHREADER20.

Franz Theodor Aerni, Market in Porta Capuana, Naples

Espresso Publishing House seeks out the foreign-language novels that deserve a second life: works of depth and beauty that have never found an adequate English edition, or have been lost to neglect for too long.

New from Espresso

The Three-Cornered Hat

Espresso Spanish Classics

The Three-Cornered Hat

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

Translated by Inés Bou

Alarcón’s best-known Spanish comic novel, the work that inspired Manuel de Falla’s 1919 ballet: an Andalusian tale of a lecherous magistrate, a quick-witted miller’s wife, and a hat that changes the law. The ballet is famous; the comedy behind it is not.

Paperback direct — $13.99 Kindle Paperback on Amazon

About this edition →

Story of a Blackcap

Espresso Italian Classics

Story of a Blackcap

Giovanni Verga

Translated by Idara Crespi

The novel that made Verga’s name: a story told entirely in letters, about a young woman confined to a convent and the correspondence that becomes her one connection to the world outside.

Pre-order Kindle

Ships March 2027

About this edition →

Marta, or Faith

Espresso Italian Classics

Marta, or Faith

Francesco Mastriani

Translated by Idara Crespi

The opening volume of Mastriani’s panoramic I Misteri di Napoli, the Neapolitan answer to Eugène Sue’s Les Mystères de Paris. We can trace no complete English translation of any part of this vast work before ours.

Pre-order Kindle

Ships September 2026

About this edition →

L’Arrabbiata and Other Italian Novellas

Espresso German Classics

L’Arrabbiata and Other Italian Novellas

Paul Heyse

Translated by Renata Lenz

Four Italian novellas by the German writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1910. A silk-spinner between Sorrento and Capri, a banner stitched in Treviso, a glass smashed at a Capri wedding, and one underlined line of verse in the Leopardi house. The first book in Espresso German Classics.

Pre-order Kindle

Publishes 1 October 2026

About this edition →

The Garnet Bracelet

Espresso Russian Classics

The Garnet Bracelet

Alexander Kuprin

Translated by Mira Sorokina

A minor civil servant has written to the same woman for eight years without ever speaking to her. On her name day he sends her a garnet bracelet, and it is the last thing he will ever send her. Its first standalone English edition.

Pre-order Kindle

Ships February 2027

About this edition →

Madame Chrysanthème

Espresso French Classics

Madame Chrysanthème

Pierre Loti

Translated by Clémence Aubert

Pierre Loti’s account of a summer in Nagasaki and a temporary wife named Chrysanthème: the novel that set in motion the chain of adaptations ending in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The last new English translation we can trace appeared in 1905.

Paperback direct — $15.99 Kindle Paperback on Amazon

About this edition →

“I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and was entertained by it from beginning to end.”

— She Reads Novels on The Blind Woman of Sorrento

As featured in: Reading in Translation  ·  CrimeReads (Lit Hub)  ·  newitalianbooks (Treccani)  ·  OperaWire

Read before anyone else

Join the Readers List and the first thing you’ll get is the opening chapters of our newest novel, before it goes on sale. After that, a letter a month on the books we bring into English, first word when a price drops, and a say in what we translate next. We publish a small catalog, so you won’t hear from us often.

Join the list

About the imprint

Espresso Publishing House was founded on a simple conviction: the world’s literature is far larger than the English-language canon suggests, and some of its finest works have been left to gather dust simply because no one has brought them to light in a worthy edition.

Each title we publish is chosen deliberately: for its literary quality, its historical significance, and what it will give a first-time reader.

Read more about Espresso Publishing House →

Where to go next

Readers The opening pages of each new book before it goes on sale, and a letter each month on what we are bringing into English. Reviewers and press Coverage of our editions so far, and where to write for a review copy.