Reading Literary Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia in Britain and the Low Countries (1550–1850) is an illuminating experience, a master class even, for understanding in depth how Anglo-Dutch relations developed in relationship to the depictions of hispanophobia and hispanophilia. The editor, Yolanda Rodríguez Pérez, uses as a timeframe early modernity and the nineteenth century—two key and complementary periods for understanding the development of these cultural dynamics. Rodríguez Pérez's key insight and the conclusion to which the majority of the chapters return is the claim that hispanophobia and hispanophilia cannot be considered exclusionary concepts within the analyzed representations, nor can we speak of a clear evolution from the demonization of Hispanic culture to its romanticization. Each of the case studies rejects any unidimensional or stereotypical interpretation while exposing a complex articulation of hispanophobia and hispanophilia, and how, behind the apparent hate, existed a remnant of admiration for Spanish culture. The overall volume clearly follows and expands upon Barbara Fuchs's study of the occlusion of Spain in English literary history in The Poetics of Piracy (2013).

Rodríguez Pérez thoroughly establishes in her introduction the general basis for the study. Although Literary Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia particularly highlights the literary content, this cannot be disassociated from the sociocultural and political aspects. The triangular geographic selection is evident, but perhaps for a nonspecialist reader, the timeframe encompassing the sixteenth until the nineteenth century requires a more detailed explanation. Whereas throughout early modernity, Spain was considered the archenemy of Britain and the Low Countries, the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of many influential cultural stereotypes that until recently had not been reevaluated.

Part one, “Early Modern Discourses on Spain,” opens with the chapter by Alexander Samson exploring the meaning of Spanishness, especially in early modernity, and what it meant for both the enemies and allies of Spain. In chapter 2, Sabine Waasdorp demonstrates how, through the malleability of translation, Antonio de Guevara's Relox de Príncipes (1529), a hispanophilic work by nature, transforms into a work of hispanophobic propaganda in English and Dutch translations. In chapter 3, Ernesto E. Oyarbide Magaña conducts an intuitive reading of Thomas Scott's Vox Populi, or Newes from Spain (1620) that underscores Scott's admiration for the diplomatic talent of the count of Gondomar, veiled in what is considered one of the most poignant works of hispanophobic propaganda. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the theater and continue to show this paradoxical attitude toward Spanish culture. In chapter 4, Frans Blom argues that the presence of the Spanish comedia in Amsterdam's first public theater became a powerhouse that revitalized the theater landscape of the time. Rena Bood, in chapter 5, demonstrates how Spanish characters and values such as honor could also be viewed as a source of inspiration, and even be appropriated, for the British and Dutch's particular cause. In chapter 6, Antonio Cortijo Ocaña turns his attention to the figure of James Salgado, a former Spanish priest and writer of anti-Spanish propaganda without entirely forgoing the romanticized image of his own country.

Chapter 7, inaugurates part two, “Modern Discourses on Spain,” and functions as a temporal pivot between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the 1800s. Here Pedro Javier Pardo explores the reception and evolution of Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605–1615) throughout the eighteenth century. His study stresses, once again, the paradox of how literary exaltation is employed for the political denigration of Spain. Susan Valladares tackles the genre of political reviews in chapter 8, expressly through two rival British reviews, the Edinburgh and the Quarterly, as a key literary medium to manipulate the public opinion about Spain to inspire either sympathy or animosity for Britain's political ends. In chapter 9, Lotte Jensen examines two ruptures in the Dutch nationalistic discourse behind the celebration of the Dutch revolt against Spain (1568–1648) that once again demonstrate the coexistence of hispanophobia and hispanophilia in Netherlandic cultural interpretations. Fernando Durán Lopez, in chapter 10, analyzes the novel Vargas, a Tale of Spain (1822) by Alexander Dallas as another example of a Spanish writer who, similar to James Salgado, showed in his “criticism from within” inconsistent hispanophobic views throughout his career. Diego Saglia focuses chapter 11 on the prolific presence of Spanish plays on the London stage in 1823, the year of the fall of the liberal regime in Madrid. Here the reader is presented with another instance of conflicting political and cultural views vis-à-vis the Spanish imaginary in Britain. In chapter 12, Raphaël Ingelbien discusses the work of two novelists, the British Thomas Colley Grattan and the Netherlander Henri Moke, who recycled the Black Legend in two of their novels, not as an expression of hispanophobia or a denunciation of Catholicism, but rather as a condemnation of bigotry and tyranny. In the last chapter, Rodríguez Pérez explores how British and Dutch literary histories negotiated the way Spanish literary works influenced the canon of both literatures, beginning with the premise of animosity that both territories maintained against Spain but also through the romanticized notion that the Peninsula was forging itself with its enemies.

In short, Rodríguez Pérez has crafted an impeccable compilation, the model of what an edited volume should be. All of the studies share a strong intersectionality between literature and history, and they complement each other perfectly, such that together they resemble a monograph more than a collection of essays. To finish reading Literary Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia is to acquire the necessary basis to understand the dynamics between hispanophobia and hispanophilia that can appear daunting for non-historians. All the case studies, while never diminishing at any point the complexity of the thematic, skillfully render it more understandable and relevant for the reader.