Vita Nuova {New Life) is Dante's earliest major work. In Dante's Vita Nuova; A Translation and an Essay (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1973), translator and editor Mark Musa combines 31 poems with explanatory prose and treats Dante's love for Beatrice Portinari.

Reliable English translations of Dante's lyrics can be found in Dante's Lyric Poetry (2 volumes, translated and with commentary by Kenelm Foster and Patrick Boyde, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967)

In Literary Criticism of Dante Alighieri (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973), Robert S. Haller has collected, translated and edited Dante's own writings about literature, including the important "Letter to Can Grande," in which Dante explains how to read and understand his Divine Comedy.

Saint Augustine's Confessions had a profound influence on Dante. A wonderful translation of this work by R. S. Pine-Coffin (Confessions, by Saint Augustine (354-430), translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin, Harmondsworth...