# Espresso Publishing House > A boutique literary imprint publishing new English translations of overlooked foreign-language fiction. Based in Calgary, Canada. Espresso Publishing House (EPH) identifies fiction from the European literary tradition — primarily nineteenth-century works originally written in Italian, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Swedish, and Portuguese — that have never been translated into English, or that are not currently available in English in a literary edition. Each title is translated directly from the source text by a specialist translator, and published with a full editorial apparatus: original introduction, translator's note, and historical notes. The imprint's editorial philosophy is that a translation should work as a piece of English prose — not merely as a rendering of the foreign original — while remaining faithful to the register, texture, and particularity of the source. EPH does not reissue existing translations. Publisher and Managing Director: Idara Crespi. Website: https://espressopublishing.com Contact: idara@espressopublishing.com --- ## The Journal Essays from the imprint on translation craft, the novels EPH chooses, and the decisions a translation turns on. Written by Idara Crespi. Section: https://espressopublishing.com/journal/ - "Why We Begin with Loti: On Espresso French Classics" — the literature of the French observer abroad, and why EPH translates those observers without correcting them. https://espressopublishing.com/journal/why-we-begin-with-loti.html - "Keeping Loti Cold: On the New Translation of Madame Chrysanthème" — why the edition keeps Loti's coldness and refuses to make his narrator easier to like. https://espressopublishing.com/journal/keeping-loti-cold.html - "Meet the Translator: Clémence Aubert" — how the translator of the French list reads a text, and why she leaves Loti cold. https://espressopublishing.com/journal/meet-clemence-aubert.html - "The Joke Is in the Word: On Translating The Three-Cornered Hat" — why the edition keeps the Spanish words its characters actually say. https://espressopublishing.com/journal/the-joke-is-in-the-word.html --- ## Series ### Espresso Italian Classics New English translations of overlooked Italian fiction from the nineteenth century. Translated by Idara Crespi. Series page: https://espressopublishing.com/series-italian.html ### Espresso Spanish Classics New English translations of overlooked Spanish fiction from the nineteenth century. Translated by Inés Bou. Series page: https://espressopublishing.com/series-spanish.html ### Espresso French Classics New English translations of overlooked French fiction from the nineteenth century. Translated by Clémence Aubert. Series page: https://espressopublishing.com/series-french.html ### Espresso German Classics New English translations of German fiction from the nineteenth century, centred on the Poetic Realists. Translated by Renata Lenz. Series page: https://espressopublishing.com/series-german.html ### Espresso Russian Classics New English translations of Russian fiction from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Translated by Mira Sorokina. Series page: https://espressopublishing.com/series-russian.html --- ## Current Catalog ### The Blind Woman of Sorrento - Original title: *La Cieca di Sorrento* - Author: Francesco Mastriani (1819–1891) - Year of original publication: 1852 - Translator: Idara Crespi - Series: Espresso Italian Classics - Published: March 2026 - Formats: Kindle ebook, paperback - Kindle ASIN: B0GSS9XDSL — $4.99 - Paperback ASIN: B0GSS7W798 — $19.99 - Page: https://espressopublishing.com/title-tbws.html - About: One of the most widely read Italian novels of the nineteenth century — serialised, reprinted, staged as opera, and beloved by generations of Neapolitan readers. Never before translated into English. A novel of identity, inheritance, and crime set in Mastriani's vividly observed Naples. ### The Three-Cornered Hat - Original title: *El sombrero de tres picos* - Author: Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833–1891) - Year of original publication: 1874 - Translator: Inés Bou - Series: Espresso Spanish Classics - Published: May 2026 - Formats: Kindle ebook, paperback - Kindle ASIN: B0FTK112G4 — $3.99 - Paperback ASIN: B0GWDG6M41 — $13.99 - Page: https://espressopublishing.com/title-stp.html - About: Alarcón's masterpiece of Andalusian folk comedy — the inspiration for Manuel de Falla's celebrated 1919 ballet, designed by Picasso, choreographed by Massine, produced by Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes. Its first modern English literary edition. ### Madame Chrysanthème (published July 2026) - Original title: *Madame Chrysanthème* - Author: Pierre Loti (1850–1923) - Year of original publication: 1887 - Translator: Clémence Aubert - Series: Espresso French Classics - Published: July 14, 2026 - Kindle ASIN: B0GY7X2DY7 - Paperback ASIN: B0H6FHJHLN - Page: https://espressopublishing.com/title-mchr.html - About: Loti's novel of a French naval officer's months in Nagasaki — the work that seeded the artistic lineage leading to Puccini's *Madama Butterfly*. A new translation from the French, with introduction, glossary, and historical notes on the Nagasaki posting and the adaptation chain. ### Marta, or Faith (pre-order — September 2026) - Original title: *I Misteri di Napoli, Vol. I* - Author: Francesco Mastriani (1819–1891) - Year of original publication: 1869–1870 - Translator: Idara Crespi - Series: Espresso Italian Classics - Forthcoming: September 15, 2026 - Kindle ASIN: B0GVJZ9V9H (pre-order) - Page: https://espressopublishing.com/title-imn.html - About: The opening volume of Mastriani's panoramic masterwork — a novel of nineteenth-century Naples that ran to hundreds of chapters and was read across the Italian peninsula. The first English translation of any volume of *I Misteri di Napoli*. ### Story of a Blackcap (pre-order — March 2027) - Original title: *Storia di una capinera* - Author: Giovanni Verga (1840–1922) - Year of original publication: 1871 - Translator: Idara Crespi - Series: Espresso Italian Classics - Forthcoming: March 15, 2027 - Kindle ASIN: B0GX2WTWJM (pre-order) - Page: https://espressopublishing.com/title-sc.html - About: Verga's first popular success — written entirely in letters, the story of a young woman confined to a convent against her will. Heartbreaking and formally precise, read in Italy for 150 years. A new English translation. ### L'Arrabbiata and Other Italian Novellas (forthcoming — October 2026) - Original titles: *L'Arrabbiata* (yearbook *Argo*, Dessau, 1854), *Die Stickerin von Treviso* (*Der Salon*, Leipzig, 1869), *Die Hochzeit auf Capri* (*Melusine und andere Novellen*, Berlin, mid-1890s), *Nerina* (collected in *Neue Novellen*, Berlin, 1875) - Author: Paul Heyse (1830–1914) - Translator: Renata Lenz - Introduction: Idara Crespi - Series: Espresso German Classics - Forthcoming: October 1, 2026 - Formats: Kindle ebook, paperback - Page: https://espressopublishing.com/title-phn.html - About: Four Italian novellas by the German writer who won the 1910 Nobel Prize in Literature. A fisherwoman between Sorrento and Capri, an embroidered banner in Treviso, a wedding toast on Capri, and one underlined line of verse in the Leopardi house at Recanati. With an introduction on Heyse, the Falcon Theory, and Italy as a German idea; a translator's note; story notes; and a glossary of the Italian his characters speak inside his German sentences. ### The Garnet Bracelet (pre-order — February 2027) - Original title: *Гранатовый браслет* - Author: Alexander Kuprin (1870–1938) - Year of original publication: 1911 - Translator: Mira Sorokina - Introduction: Idara Crespi - Series: Espresso Russian Classics - Forthcoming: February 14, 2027 - Kindle ASIN: B0HC6KLHDJ (pre-order) - Page: https://espressopublishing.com/series-russian.html - About: Kuprin's most celebrated work. A minor civil servant writes to the same woman for eight years without ever speaking to her, and on her name day sends her a garnet bracelet. Its first modern standalone English edition. --- ## Key Pages - Homepage: https://espressopublishing.com/ - Full catalog: https://espressopublishing.com/books.html - About the imprint: https://espressopublishing.com/about.html - The translators (one specialist per source language, with the titles each has translated): https://espressopublishing.com/translators.html - Press coverage: https://espressopublishing.com/press.html - Where to buy: https://espressopublishing.com/where-to-buy.html - Readers list: https://espressopublishing.com/readers.html