José A. Pérez Díez

Dr José A. Pérez Díez is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of English of the University of Leeds. After studying physics and English language and literature at the Complutense University of Madrid, he moved to the UK to read for an MA in Shakespeare and Theatre at the Shakespeare Institute of the University of Birmingham, Stratford-upon-Avon, where he stayed on to undertake his doctorate. His thesis was a modern-spelling critical edition of John Fletcher and Philip Massinger's 1615 comedy Love's Cure, or The Martial Maid, which was based on a Spanish comedia of the same period, La fuerza de la costumbre (The Force of Custom) by the Valencian dramatist Guillén de Castro.

As an editor and bibliographer, he has a keen commitment to editing the drama of the English Renaissance, particularly beyond the works of William Shakespeare. His main historical research focuses on the use of Spanish literary sources by the dramatists of the Jacobean period (1603-1625), particularly with respect to John Fletcher (1579-1625) and his circle of frequent collaborators (Francis Beaumont, Nathan Field, and Philip Massinger). His interest in Anglo-Spanish cultural relations in the period extends to the study of influential diplomatic and literary connections. For instance, he has conducted extensive archival research on the literary connections of Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, 1st Count of Gondomar (1567-1626), who was twice ambassador from the King of Spain at James I's court (1613-18 and 1620-22). His other main field of research is performance studies, particularly with respect to the analysis of modern productions of Shakespeare and other Renaissance drama.

He is the Associate Editor of the Oxford Marston, and has particular responsibility for producing the old-spelling text that will appear in the Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO), and of coordinating the collation of all extant copies of the early quartos and octavos of Marston's plays and poems in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand.