# List of English translations of the Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is an epic poem in Italian written between 1308 and 1321 that describes its author's journey through the Christian afterlife. The three cantiche of the poem, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, describe Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, respectively. The poem is considered one of the greatest works of world literature and helped establish Dante's Tuscan dialect as the standard form of the Italian language. It has been translated over 400 times into at least 52 different languages.
Though English poets Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton referenced and partially translated Dante's works in the 14th and 17th centuries, respectively, it took until the early 19th century for the first full English translation of the Divine Comedy to be published. This was over 300 years after the first Latin (1416), Spanish (1515), and French (1500s) translations had been completed. By 1906, Dante scholar Paget Toynbee calculated that the Divine Comedy had been touched upon by over 250 translators and sixty years later bibliographer Gilbert F. Cunningham observed that the frequency of English Dante translations was increasing with time. As of 2023, the Divine Comedy has been translated into English more times than it has been translated into any other language.

## List of translations

A complete listing and criticism of all English translations of at least one of the three cantiche (parts) was made by Cunningham in 1966. The table below summarises Cunningham's data with additions between 1966 and the present, many of which are taken from the Dante Society of America's yearly North American bibliography and Società Dantesca Italiana [it]'s international bibliography. Many more translations of individual lines or cantos exist, but these are too numerous for the scope of this list.
List of translations :
| Published | Translator(s) | Nationality | Publisher(s) | Parts translated | Form | Notes |
| 1782 | Charles Rogers | United Kingdom | J. Nichols | Inferno | Blank verse | First translation of a full cantica into English. Initially published anonymously |
| 1785–1802 | Henry Boyd | United Kingdom | C. Dilly | Comedy i.e. all three parts | Rhymed 6-line stanzas | First full translation of the Divine Comedy in English |
| 1805–1814 | Henry Francis Cary | United Kingdom | James Carpenter (The Inferno, 1805–1806); Taylor and Hessey (The Vision, 1814) | Comedy | Blank verse | Volume 20 in the Harvard Classics series. Reprinted by Bohn's Library in 1850 and Chandos Classics in 1871 Described by The Cambridge Companion to Dante as the first "powerful, accurate, and poetically moving" translation. Became a bestseller and was required in schools |
| 1807 | Nathaniel Howard | United Kingdom | John Murray | Inferno | Blank verse | |
| 1812 | Joseph Hume | United Kingdom | T. Cadell and W. Davies | Inferno | Blank verse | |
| 1833–1840 | Ichabod Charles Wright | United Kingdom | Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman | Comedy | Rhymed 6-line stanzas | |
| 1843–1865 | John Dayman | United Kingdom | Longmans, Green, and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1843–1893 | Thomas William Parsons | United States | De Vries, Ibarra and Company; Houghton, Mifflin and Company | Comedy (incomplete) | Quatrains and irregular rhyme | |
| 1849 | John Aitken Carlyle | United Kingdom | Chapman and Hall | Inferno | Prose | First British prose translation of Inferno. Reprinted by J.M. Dent and Sons and edited by Hermann Oelsner [de] for their Temple Classics line in 1900 |
| 1850 | Patrick Bannerman | United Kingdom | William Blackwood and Sons | Comedy | Irregular rhyme | |
| 1851–1854 | Charles Bagot Cayley | United Kingdom | Longmans, Brown, Green, and Longmans | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1852 | E. O'Donnell | United Kingdom | Thomas Richardson and Son | Comedy | Prose | First British prose translation of the whole Divine Comedy. |
| 1854 | Thomas Brooksbank | United Kingdom | John W. Parker and Son | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 1854 | Sir William Frederick Pollock | United Kingdom | Chapman and Hall | Comedy | Blank tercets | |
| 1859 | Bruce Whyte | United Kingdom | Wright & Co.; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co | Inferno | Irregular rhyme | |
| 1859–1866 | John Wesley Thomas | United Kingdom | Henry G. Bohn | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1862 | William Patrick Wilkie | United Kingdom | Edmonston and Douglas | Inferno | Blank tercets | |
| 1862–1863 | Claudia Hamilton Ramsay | United Kingdom | Tinsley Brothers | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1865 | William Michael Rossetti | United Kingdom | Macmillan and Co. | Inferno | Blank tercets | |
| 1865–1870 | James Ford | United Kingdom | Smith, Elder & Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1867 | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | United States | Ticknor and Fields and Bernhard Tauchnitz | Comedy | Blank tercets | First complete translation by an American author. Highly praised upon publication and remains one of the most commonly reprinted translations in both the United States and the United Kingdom |
| 1867–1868 | David Johnston | United Kingdom | Self-published | Comedy | Blank tercets | Never placed on sale; the author sent copies directly to libraries and friends |
| 1877 | Charles Tomlinson | United Kingdom | S.W. Partridge and Co. | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 1880–1892 | Arthur John Butler | United Kingdom | Macmillan and Co. | Comedy | Prose | |
| 1881 | Warburton Pike | United Kingdom | C. Kegan Paul & Co. | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 1883 | William Stratford Dugdale | United Kingdom | George Bell & Sons | Purgatorio | Prose | |
| 1884 | James Romanes Sibbald | United Kingdom | David Douglas | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 1885 | James Innes Minchin | United Kingdom | Longmans, Green, and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1886–1887 | Edward Hayes Plumptre | United Kingdom | Wm. Isbister Limited | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1887 | Frederick Kneller Haselfoot Haselfoot | United Kingdom | Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1888 | John Augustine Wilstach | United States | Houghton, Mifflin and Company | Comedy | Rhymed stanzas | |
| 1889–1900 | William Warren Vernon | United Kingdom | Macmillan & Co. | Comedy | Prose | |
| 1891–1892 | Charles Eliot Norton | United States | Houghton, Mifflin and Company | Comedy | Prose | First American prose translation of the whole Divine Comedy. Revised in 1902 |
| 1892–1915 | Charles Lancelot Shadwell | United Kingdom | Macmillan & Co. | Purgatorio and Paradiso | Marvellian stanzas | |
| 1893 | George Musgrave | United Kingdom | Swan Sonnenschein & Co. | Inferno | Spenserian stanzas | |
| 1893 | Edward Sullivan | United Kingdom | Elliot Stock | Inferno | Prose | |
| 1895 | Robert Urquhart | United Kingdom | Privately printed | Inferno | Terza rima | Bibliographer Gilbert F. Cunningham inferred that "Macmillan [& Co.] arranged for the production of the book, but decided not to publish it" |
| 1898 | Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton | United Kingdom | Grant Richards | Inferno | Hendecasyllabic blank tercets | |
| 1899 | Philip Henry Wicksteed | United Kingdom | J.M. Dent & Sons | Paradiso | Prose | Edited by Herman Oelsner for Temple Classics |
| 1899 | Arthur Compton Auchmuty | United Kingdom | Williams and Norgate | Purgatorio | Octosyllabic terza rima | |
| 1899–1901 | Samuel Home | United Kingdom | Woodall, Minshall, and Co. | Purgatorio (incomplete: I–XXXI only) | Hendecasyllabic blank tercets | |
| 1901 | Thomas Okey | United Kingdom | J.M. Dent & Sons | Purgatorio | Prose | Edited by Herman Oelsner for Temple Classics |
| 1901 | John Carpenter Garnier | United Kingdom | Truslove, Hanson & Combe | Inferno | Prose | |
| 1902 | Edward Clarke Lowe | United Kingdom | G. H. Tyndall | Comedy | Blank tercets | |
| 1903–1909 | Edward Wilberforce | United Kingdom | Macmillan and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1903–1911 | Sir Samuel Walker Griffith | United Kingdom | Powell and Co. | Comedy | Hendecasyllabic blank tercets | |
| 1904 | Caroline C. Potter | United Kingdom | Digby, Long & Co. | Purgatorio and Paradiso | Rhymed quatrains | |
| 1904 | Henry Fanshawe Tozer | United Kingdom | Clarendon Press | Comedy | Prose | |
| 1904 | Marvin Richardson Vincent | United States | Charles Scribner's Sons | Inferno | Blank verse | |
| 1905 | Charles Gordon Wright | United Kingdom | Methuen & Co. | Purgatorio | Prose | |
| 1908 | Frances Isabella Fraser | United Kingdom | S.W. Simms | Paradiso | Blank tercets | |
| 1910 | Agnes Louisa Money | United Kingdom | George Allen & Sons | Purgatorio | Blank tercets | |
| 1911 | Charles Edwin Wheeler | United Kingdom | J.M. Dent & Sons | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1914 | Edith Mary Shaw | United Kingdom | Constable and Company | Comedy | Blank verse | |
| 1915 | Edward Joshua Edwardes | United Kingdom | Women's Printing Society | Inferno | Blank tercets | |
| 1915 | Sir Samuel Griffith | Australia | Oxford University Press | Comedy | Unrhymed hendecasyllabic verse | First translation by an Australian author |
| 1915 | Henry Johnson | United States | Yale University Press; Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press | Comedy | Blank tercets | |
| 1918–1921 | Courtney Langdon | United States | Harvard University Press | Comedy | Blank verse | |
| 1920 | Eleanor Vinton Murray | United States | Self-published | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 1921 | Melville Best Anderson | United States | World Book Company; Yonkers-on-Hydon; George G. Harrap & Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | Reprinted in Oxford World's Classics with an introduction from Paget Toynbee in 1932 |
| 1922 | Henry John Hooper | United Kingdom | George Routledge and Sons | Inferno | Amphibrachic tetrameter | |
| 1927 | David James MacKenzie | United Kingdom | Longmans, Green and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1928–1931 | Albert R. Bandini | United States (born in Italy) | The People's Publishing Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1928–1954 | Sydney Fowler Wright | United Kingdom | Fowler Wright Ltd.; Oliver and Boyd | Inferno and Purgatorio | Irregularly rhymed decasyllables | |
| 1931 | Jefferson Butler Fletcher | United States | The Macmillan Company | Comedy | Defective terza rima | |
| 1931 | Lacy Lockert | United States | Princeton University Press | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 1932–1935 | Geoffrey Langdale Bickersteth | United Kingdom | Cambridge University Press | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1933–1943 | Laurence Binyon | United Kingdom | Macmillan and Co. | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1934–1940 | Louis How | United States | The Harbor Press | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1938 | Ralph Thomas Bodey | United Kingdom | Harold Cleaver | Comedy | Blank verse | |
| 1939–1946 | John Dickson Sinclair | United Kingdom | The Bodley Head | Comedy | Prose | Republished by Oxford University Press in 1948 |
| 1948 | Lawrence Grant White | United States | Pantheon Books | Comedy | Blank verse | |
| 1948 | Patrick Cummins | United States | B. Herder Book Co. | Comedy | Hendecasyllabic terza rima | |
| 1949–1953 | Harry Morgan Ayres | United States | S. F. Vanni | Comedy | Prose | |
| 1949–1962 | Dorothy L. Sayers | United Kingdom | Penguin Books | Comedy | Terza rima | Printed in Penguin Classics. After Sayers' death in 1957, the final cantos of Paradiso were completed by Barbara Reynolds. |
| 1952 | Thomas Weston Ramsey | United Kingdom | The Hand and Flower Press | Paradiso | Defective terza rima | |
| 1954 | Howard Russell Huse | United States | Rinehart | Comedy | Prose | |
| 1954–1970 | John Ciardi | United States | New American Library | Comedy | Defective terza rima | Audio version of Inferno recorded and released by Folkways Records in 1954 |
| 1956 | Glen Levin Swiggett | United States | University Press of the University of the South | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1958 | Mary Prentice Lillie | United States | Grabhorn Press | Comedy | Hendecasyllabic blank tercets | |
| 1961 | Warwick Fielding Chipman | United Kingdom | Oxford University Press | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 1962 | Clara Stillman Reed | United States | Self-published | Comedy | Prose | |
| 1965 | William F. Ennis | United Kingdom | Il Campo Editore | Comedy | Dodecasyllabic terza rima | |
| 1965 | Aldo Maugeri | Italy | La Sicilia | Inferno | Blank tercets | First English translation of Inferno to be published in Italy. |
| 1966 | Louis Biancolli | United States | Washington Square Press | Comedy | Blank verse | |
| 1966 | G. W. Greene | United States | Italica | Inferno (incomplete) | Blank verse | Contains only thirty-one of the Inferno's thirty-four cantos; Greene died in 1883 without publishing the work |
| 1966 | BBC Third Programme | United Kingdom | British Broadcasting Corporation | Inferno | Terza rimaDefective terza rimaUnrhymed hexameterAlliterative verseBlank verse | Contains work from twelve translators who presented their translations on the BBC Third Programme |
| 1967–2002 | Mark Musa | United States | Penguin Books | Comedy | Blank verse | Second Penguin Classics translation |
| 1969 | Thomas Goddard Bergin | United States | Grossman Publishers | Comedy | Blank verse | |
| 1969 | Allan Gilbert | United States | Duke University Press | Inferno | Prose | |
| 1970–1975 | Charles S. Singleton | United States | Princeton University Press | Comedy | Prose | Literal prose translation. Published as six volumes, with one volume of translation facing Italian text and one volume of commentary for each cantica |
| 1979 | Kenneth R. Mackenzie | United Kingdom | The Folio Society | Comedy | Verse | Contains engravings from John Flaxman |
| 1980–1984 | Allen Mandelbaum | United States | Bantam Books | Comedy | Blank verse | Mandelbaum was awarded a Gold Medal of Honor from the city of Florence for his translation. Certain editions contain illustrations from Barry Moser. |
| 1981 | C. H. Sisson | United Kingdom | Oxford World's Classics | Comedy | Free tercets | |
| 1983 | Tom Phillips | United Kingdom | Waddington Graphics | Inferno | Verse | Contains original prints by Phillips |
| 1985 | Nicholas Kilmer | United States | Branden Publishing Co. | Inferno | Blank verse | |
| 1987 | James Finn Cotter | United States | Amity House | Comedy | Blank verse | |
| 1990 | Tibor Wlassics | Hungary (published and written in the United States) | In Print Inc. | Inferno | Blank verse | |
| 1993 | James S. Torrens, S.J. | United States | University of Scranton Press; University of London Press: University of Toronto Press | Paradiso | Blank verse | |
| 1994 | Steve Ellis | United Kingdom | Chatto & Windus | Inferno | Blank verse | |
| 1994 | Stephen Wentworth Arndt | United States | The Edwin Mellen Press | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1994 | Robert Pinsky | United States | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 1996 | Peter Dale | United Kingdom | Anvil Press Poetry | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 1996–2007 | Robert M. Durling | United States | Oxford University Press | Comedy | Prose | |
| 1997–1998 | Kathryn Lindskoog | United States | Mercer University Press | Comedy | Prose | Advertised as a "retelling" rather than direct translation |
| 1998 | Elio Zappulla | United States | Random House | Inferno | Blank verse | |
| 2000 | Stanley Appelbaum | United States | Dover Publications | Comedy (partial) | Free verse | Contains a total of thirty-three cantos selected from different cantiche |
| 2000 | Armand Schwerner | United States | Talisman House | Inferno (incomplete) | Blank verse | Contains only twelve cantos; Schwerner died before he could finish the translation |
| 2000 | W. S. Merwin | United States | Knopf | Purgatorio | Blank verse | |
| 2000 | A. S. Kline | United States | Poetry in translation | Comedy | Prose | |
| 2000–2007 | Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander | United States | Anchor Books | Comedy | Free verse | Known for its extensive scholarly notes; the full text is over 600 pages. The Hollanders were given a Gold Florin award from the city of Florence for their translation. |
| 2002 | Ciaran Carson | Ireland (published in the United Kingdom) | Granta Books | Inferno | Terza rima | First Irish translation of Inferno. |
| 2002–2008 | Michael Palma | United States | W.W. Norton | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 2002–2004 | Anthony M. Esolen | United States | Modern Library Classics | Comedy | Blank verse | |
| 2005–2012 | J. Gordon Nichols | United Kingdom | Alma Books | Comedy | Defective terza rima | |
| 2006–2007 | Robin Kirkpatrick | United Kingdom | Penguin Books | Comedy | Blank verse | Third Penguin Classics translation |
| 2007 | Frank Salvidio | United States | iUniverse (self-published) | Inferno | Free tercets | |
| 2007–2017 | Tom Simone | United States | Focus-Hackett Publishing | Comedy | Free verse | |
| 2009–2017 | Stanley Lombardo | United States | Hackett Classics | Comedy | Blank tercets | |
| 2010 | Burton Raffel | United States | Northwestern World Classics | Comedy | Terza rima | |
| 2011 | Robert M. Torrance | United States | Xlibris (self-published) | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 2013–2025 | Mary Jo Bang | United States | Graywolf Press | Inferno, Purgatorio (Paradiso scheduled for July 2025) | Free verse | Text of poem contains anachronistic references to figures such as Sigmund Freud, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Stephen Colbert |
| 2013 | Clive James | Australia (written in the United Kingdom) | Picador | Comedy | Quatrains | |
| 2017 | Peter Thornton | United States | Arcade Publishing | Inferno | Blank verse | |
| 2018–2020 | Alasdair Gray | United Kingdom | Canongate Books | Comedy | Prosaic verse | Renders "Ghibelline" and "Guelph" as "Tory" and "Whig" respectively |
| 2020–2021 | David Macleod Black | United Kingdom (born in South Africa) | New York Review Books | Purgatorio | Blank verse | |
| 2021 | Ned Denny | United Kingdom | Carcanet | Comedy | Long, loosely-rhyming couplets in twelve-line, 144-syllable stanzas (an average of nine per canto). | A "poet's version... in the interpretative tradition of Chapman, Dryden and Pope" and titled simply B (After Dante) - with the canticas becoming Blaze, Bathe and Bliss - this is the only translation to recast the Commedia into a wholly original form. |
| 2021 | Gerald J. Davis | United States | Insignia Publishing | Comedy | Prose | |
| 2022 | J. Simon Harris | United States | Nostra Vita Books | Inferno | Terza rima | |
| 2022-2023 | Joe Carlson | United States | Roman Roads Press | Comedy | Blank Verse | |