'Early Modern Translations from Spanish into English, 1500 - 1640' began in October 1999 with funding from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the Russell Trust. The project was directed by Professor Alan K. G. Paterson and worked on by Dr Alexander Samson at the University of St Andrews. The work was carried out in close collaboration with the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

We would like to acknowledge gratefully the assistance of staff in Special Collections at the University of St Andrews Library, Julian Crowe for his invaluable help in overseeing the project on what seemed an almost daily basis, Seamus Ross of the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (University of Glasgow) for technical advice, Anne MacKenzie (University of Glasgow) for her support, Jeremy Robbins (University of Edinburgh) for his enthusiasm and encouragement of the project, and Paul Nelles for sharing so much of his expertise and past experience. Our thanks also go to Barry Ife, John Bradley, Mark Stewart, Arianna Ciula, Paul Spence and others at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King's College, for making it a reality.

The initial list of texts was established from a close examination of the Short Title Catalogue. (Unfortunately, in 1999 the ESTC was still in the process of being completed.) This list was then compared to secondary bibliographies of translations into English from a variety of sources to ensure there were no omissions. Although every effort was made to ensure that the database constituted a definitive record of translation activity, it is possible that some texts have been missed, especially in light of the fact that many of the texts arrive in English through one or more intermediary translations and languages. Please feel free to let us know if you spot any important omissions a.samson@ucl.ac.uk.