An Anthology of Elizabethan Prose Fiction

These five works - George Gascoigne''s The Adventures of Master F. J; John Lyly''s Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit; Robert Greene''s Pandosto. The Triumph of Time; Thomas Nashe''s The Unfortunate Traveller and Thomas Deloney''s Jack of Newbury - represent Elizabethan fiction at its best. The Adventures of Master F. J. is a comedy of manners with a sting in its tail. In Euphues John Lyly invented a new, elaborate rhetorical style which delighted its Elizabethan audience and has been praised or parodied ever since. Pandosto was Shakespeare''s source for The Winter''s Tale, but Greene''s is a darker story designed to shock the reader accustomed to romantic conventions. The Unfortunate Traveller marks the peak of Nashe''s gift for literary pastiche, mixing picaresque narrative with mock-historical fantasy. Jack of Newbury dedicated to ''All famous cloth Workers in England'', sums up important social contradictions in sharply observed comic scenes and brisk, witty dialogue.