Book excerpt: The Companion to Central and Eastern European Humanism: The Czech Lands is the first reference work on humanists and their literary activities in this region to appear in English. It provides biographical and bibliographical data about humanist literary life between c. 1480 and 1630, in two volumes, organised alphabetically by authors’ names. This first volume includes three introductory chapters together with more than 130 biographical entries covering the letters A-L and a complete overview of the most recent research on humanism in Central Europe. The interdisciplinary research team behind this Companion paid particular attention to local approaches to the classical tradition, to humanistic multilingualism and to Bohemian authors’ participation in European scholarly networks. The Companion is a highly relevant resource for all academics who are interested in humanism and the history of early modern literature in Central Europe.