New Literary History: A Journal of Theory & Interpretation is a scholarly journal founded in 1969 as part of the Sesquicentennial Celebration of the University of Virginia. Its first editor was Ralph Cohen. The current editor is Rita Felski, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English. The journal is published four times a year by Johns Hopkins University Press.

At the time of its founding, New Literary History was the first English language journal devoted to literary theory and to general questions of method and interpretation. It immediately established itself as a leading venue for intellectual debate amongst its international and interdisciplinary audience. Some of its most influential issues include: What is Literature? (1973); Medieval Literature and Contemporary Theory (1978); Literature and/as Moral Philosophy (1983); Cultural Studies: China and the West (1997); Ecocriticism (1999); Everyday Life (2002), and Literary History in the Global Age (2008).

New Literary History serves as an international forum for scholarly exchange, publishing work from around the globe and often translating important new work into English. A translation program is also being launched that will make essays from the journal available in a number of different languages.