David Hook completed his Oxford DPhil thesis under the supervision of Professor Sir Peter Russell. He successively held a personal chair in Medieval Spanish Studies at King's College London, then the chair of Hispanic Studies at Bristol until 2010. He has been a Faculty Research Fellow at Oxford since June 2011. A volume of essays for him was published by the Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, New York, in November 2013: Text, Manuscript and Print in Medieval and Modern Iberia: Studies in Honour of David Hook, edited by Barry Taylor, Geoffrey West, and Jane Whetnall, xxi + 432 pp.
Research
Medieval Hispanic studies, with particular emphasis on literary and manuscript studies and the history of the book. Publications include articles on aspects of the texts and manuscripts of epic, balladry, chronicles, popular religious legends and other works, and the manuscript collector Sir Thomas Phillipps and his circle.
Teaching
Consultation on manuscript and medieval studies and the history of the book for research students, by prior arrangement through supervisors.
Publications
Among recent (since 2000) and forthcoming research publications are:
'Sobre las relaciones textuales de La destruición de Jerusalem (Toledo: Sucesor de Pedro Hagenbach, c.1510?)', Incipit (Buenos Aires), 43 (2023), 225-233.
'Creative Copyists: Numerical Problems in a Manuscript of the Crónica de Don Alvaro de Luna from the Bibliotheca Phillippica (MS 8415) and their implications for future editions', in The Medieval Chronicle, 15: Essays in Honour of Erik Kooper, edited by Sjoerd Levelt and Graeme Dunphy (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 161-172.
'Los manuscritos hispánicos, portugueses, e hispanoamericanos de Richard Heber', Incipit (Buenos Aires), 41 (2021), 87-140.
'El Libro de la destruición de Jerusalén y la historia del vascuence', Medievalia (Barcelona), 24 (2021), 7-10.
'From Covadonga to Carmarthenshire? Narrative Parallels for an Episode in the Legend of Twm Siôn Cati', The Carmarthenshire Antiquary, 57 (2021), 52-59.
'On Some Spanish Poetic Manuscripts from the Bibliotheca Phillippica now in Cambridge University Library', Revista de Cancioneros Impresos y Manuscritos, 9 (2020), 33-43.
'El trasfondo folklórico de dos episodios de las Mocedades de Rodrigo', in "Et era muy acuçioso en allegar el saber": Studia philologica in honorem Juan Paredes, ed. Eva Muñoz Raya and Enrique Nogueras Valdivieso (Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2020), 433-443.
'Phillipps MS 2232 (vol. III): A Witness for Text Lost from the San Millán Codex of the Leges antiquae regum Wisigothorum (Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, Códice 34)', Codicological Notes, 01032019.003 (March 2019), at: http://mimss-codicological-notes.blogspot.com/
'Morality and the Morico: Ambush and the Art of War in "Alora la bien cercada"', in Old Ballads, New Approaches: Studies on the Romancero viejo, ed. Juan-Carlos Conde & David Hook, Publications of the Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, 6 (Oxford: MIMSS, 2018), 75-99.
Translations in Times of Disruption. An Interdisciplinary Study in Transnational Contexts, ed. David Hook & Graciela Iglesias-Rogers, Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), xvii + 315pp.; co-authored 'Introduction' (pp. 1-19); sole-authored chapter, 'Distant Disruption: Some Italian Editions of the Costituzione politica della monarchia spagnuola and their Significance' (pp. 75-99). Reviewed by: José María Portillo Valdés, Historia Mexicana, 69.4 (276), abril-mayo 2020.
The Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Manuscripts of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Publications of MIMSS, 5, in 2 vols (Westbury on Trym: Fontaine Notre Dame/David Hook, 2017), I: iv + 369 pp. + 8 plates; II: iv + 474 pp. + 4 plates. Reviewed by: Lourdes Soriano Robles, Medievalia, 21 (2018), 139-149; Nigel Griffin, BSS, 96 (2019); Pablo Saracino, Incipit (Buenos Aires), 39 (2019), 186-190.
'Sir Thomas Phillipps and the Carmarthen Cartulary', The Carmarthenshire Antiquary, 53 (2017), 62-76.
'Un texto para todos los tiempos: El Tizón de la nobleza de España y la intelectualidad angloamericana del siglo XIX', in Antes se agotan la mano y la pluma que su historia. Magis defecit manus et calamus quam eius hystoria. Homenaje a Carlos Alvar, ed. Constance Carta, Sara Finci, and Dora Mancheva, 2 vols (San Millán de la Cogolla: CiLengua, 2016 ), II, 1185-1201.
(ed.). The Arthur of the Iberians, Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, VIII (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2015), xv + 531 pp. Also contains his own chapter, "Arthur Goes Global", pp. 382-407. Reviewed by: Michael Harney, BSS, 94 (2017), 1-2; Nicola Morato, RLM, 29 (2017), 263-282; David Wacks, Arthuriana, 26:4 (2016), 178-181; Andrew M. Beresford, Medium Aevum, 85 (2016), 184; María Coduras Bruna, Medievalia, 18:1 (2015), 259-263.
'Two Aragonese-Latin Sermon Fragments in Cambridge University Library MS 4408', Codicological Notes, 04102012.002, at: http://mimss-codicological-notes.blogspot.com/ (2012)
'The Textual Status and Relationships of the Italian Translations of the Constitución política de la monarquía española (Cádiz, 1812)', Romance Studies, 30.1 (2013), 12-25.
'Reflections on Some Medieval Spanish Manifestations of the Heroic Catalogue and Other Enumerative Passages', in 'El Poema de Mio Cid' y la épica medieval castellana: Nuevas aproximaciones críticas, ed. Juan-Carlos Conde & Amaranta Saguar García, PMHRS, 75, PMIMSS, 3 (London: Department of Iberian & Latin American Studies, Queen Mary, University of London, 2015 [=2016]), pp. 181-210.
'Advancing on Alora', in Medieval Hispanic Studies in Memory of Alan Deyermond, edited by Julian Weiss, Louise Haywood, and Andrew M. Beresford (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2013), pp. 121-138.
'Acción, descripción, y narración en el Cantar de Mio Cid en el contexto de la epopeya europea,' in "Sonando van sus nuevas allent parte del mar": El Cantar de mio Cid y el mundo de la épica, ed. Alberto Montaner Frutos, Collection Méridiennes, Etudes Médiévales Ibériques (Toulouse: CNRS/Université de Toulouse - Le Mirail, 2013), pp. 191-216.
The Constitución política de la monarquía española (1812). Text, Translation, and Impact of the Constitution of Cadiz. A Catalogue of the Bicentenary Exhibition at the Taylor Institution, Oxford (9 March - 5 April 2012), Hispanic Catalogues Series, 1 (Westbury on Trym: David Hook, 2012), [ii] + 22 pp. ISBN 978-0-9517564-2-3.
'A Repeated Passage in a Manuscript Copy of the Crónica de Enrique IV of Diego Enríquez del Castillo (MS C-3)', Codicological Notes, CN.02112011.001, http://mimss-codicological-notes.blogspot.com/ (2011).
'Problemas ético-ecdóticos de un manuscrito medieval', in Actas del XIII Congreso Internacional Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval, ed. J.M. Fradejas Rueda et al., 2 vols (Valladolid: Ayuntamiento, Universidad, & AHLM, 2010), II, 997-1011.
(editor) The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, Papers from the Quincentenary Conference (Bristol, 2004) (Bristol: HiPLAM, 2008).
'An Accidental Americanist: Sir Thomas Phillipps and Juan de Tovar's Historia de los indios mexicanos (Bibliotheca Phillippica, MS 8187)', http://hdl.handle.net/1983/992 (2007, Bristol Repository of Scholarly Eprints).
'El Cantar de Mio Cid y el contexto europeo', Olivar, Revista de Literatura y Cultura Españolas (Argentina), Año 8, no. 10 (2007), 313-325.
(editor) Manuscripts, Texts, and Transmission from Isidore to the Enlightenment.Papers from the Bristol Colloquium on Hispanic Texts and Manuscripts (Bristol: HiPLAM, 2006).
'Bibliographical Annotation in an XVIIth-century Spanish University Context: Evidence for Unrecorded Editions, 1488-1674', Bulletin of Spanish Studies, LXXXIII (2006), 911-924.
(editor) From Orosius to the 'Historia Silense': Four Essays on Late Antique and Early Medieval Historiography of the Iberian Peninsula (Bristol: HiPLAM, 2005).
'Fuentes para la reconstrucción de una comunidad: problemas y posibilidades de la documentación ayamontina del s. XVI. El caso del librero Alfonso Fernández', in VI Jornadas de Historia de Ayamonte, ed. Enrique R. Arroyo Berrones (Ayamonte: Patronato Municipal de Cultura, 2002), 101-123.
(editor) Text & Manuscript in Medieval Spain. Papers from the King's College Colloquium (London: King's College London Department of Spanish & Spanish-American Studies, 2000).
The Destruction of Jerusalem. Catalan and Castilian Texts, King's College London Medieval Studies, vol. XVI (London: King's College London Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 2000).