Thomas Lodge was the most versatile of the pioneering professional writers of the English Renaissance, experimenting in an astonishing variety of forms. His long, eventful, and well-documented life makes him one of the most individualized figures of his age, and yet also one of the most representative. This is the first-ever collection of Lodge scholarship. It comprises a selection of the best and most important biographical and critical work, ranging from 1932 to 2008 and including first-time English translations. Charles Whitney's discerning introduction discusses each article or book chapter in the context of Lodge scholarship and beyond, and is supplemented by a bibliography of additional material. This unique collection offers a distinctive vantage on both Lodge and many current topics in Renaissance and early modern studies such as humanism, republicanism, romance, intertextuality, plagiarism, gender, colonization, Shakespearean sources, the histories of print and of reading, authorship, and English Catholicism and religious conflict.

"Thomas Lodge and his Renaissance contemporaries-- among them William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, and Sir Philip Sidney-- were all searching for new means of literary expression. Lodge experimented in prose fiction and the essay, in drama, verse narrative and verse satire, and in various forms of lyrics; in doing so, he helped to build the foundation in these genres for writers of generations to follow. This study traces his contribution to the developmentof English literature during the reign of Elizabeth I and James I. Beyond his writing, Thomas Lodge's life was full one. He voyaged to the New World with an Elizabethan privateer. He studied medicine at the University of Avignon, France, and was a practicing physician London. He lost his life attending the sick in the London Plague of 1625. Wesley D. Rae considers the multifaceted aspects of Lodge's career, and he views Lodge not only as an author of note, but as a Renaissance gentleman and a true representative of his age." -Publisher.

Formerly published as "English Renaissance Theatre History: A Reference Guide" by G. K. Hall in 1982, this annotated bibliography of scholarship in the field of Elizabethan theatre history has been out of print for almost 30 years. Most academic libraries have a copy in their reference departments, and this classic is now available for the personal libraries of students and scholars in the field. It has never been easier to review the academic literature in such areas as reconstructions of Shakespeare's Globe Playhouse, and other public and private playhouses of Shakespeare's London; the court masques; Inigo Jones; Richard Burbage and other actors of the time; the Lord Mayor's Shows; Puritan opposition to the stage; and other such topics. The terminal date of 1979 reflects the date of original production, but with this tool it is a simple matter for the scholar to update his or her review of the literature. The comprehensive Index is invaluable, and Stevens also provides a preface and introduction.

The major claim made by this study is that early modern English prose fiction self-consciously invented a new form of literary culture in which professional writers created books to be printed and sold to anonymous readers. It further claims that this period's narrative innovations emerged not solely from changes in early modern culture like print and the book market, but also from the rediscovery of a forgotten late classical text from North Africa, Heliodorus's Aethiopian History. In making these claims, Steve Mentz provides a comprehensive historicist and formalist account of prose romance, the most important genre of Elizabethan fiction. He explores how authors and publishers of prose fiction in late sixteenth-century England produced books that combined traditional narrative forms with a dynamic new understanding of the relationship between text and audience. Though prose fiction would not dominate English literary culture until the eighteenth century, Mentz demonstrates that the form began to invent itself as a distinct literary kind in England nearly two centuries earlier. Examining the divergent but interlocking careers of Robert Greene, Sir Philip Sidney, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Nashe, Mentz traces how through differing commitments to print culture and their respective engagements with Heliodoran romance, these authors helped make the genre of prose fiction culturally and economically viable in England. Mentz explores how the advent of print and the book market changed literary discourse, influencing new conceptions of what he calls 'middlebrow' narrative and new habits of reading and writing. This study draws together three important strains of current scholarly inquiry: the history of the book and print culture, the study of popular fiction, and the re-examination of genre and influence. It also connects early modern fiction with longer histories of prose fiction and the rise of the modern novel.

The sensational narratives of John Lyly, Robert Greene, and Thomas Lodge established prose fiction as an independent genre in the late sixteenth century. The texts they created are a paradoxical blend of outrageous plotting and rhetorical sophistication, high and low culture. Although their works were feverishly devoured by contemporary readers, these writers are usually only known to students as sources for Shakespearean comedy. Fictions of Authorship in Late Elizabethan Narratives re-examines some of the pamphleteers earlier critics christened the 'University Wits', young professionals who exposed their education and talents to the still new and uncertain world of mass market publication. These texts chart their authors' disenchantment with the limitations of romance and of their own careers, yet they also form an alternative canon of vernacular writing, which is both self-referential and self-questioning. Shocking, unpredictable, and very engaging, these narratives provide a vivid commentary on the interface between popular taste and 'English literature'.

'This masterly work ought to be The Elizabethan Encyclopedia, and no less.' - Cahiers Elizabethains Edmund Spenser remains one of Britain's most famous poets. With nearly 700 entries this Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive one-stop reference tool for: * appreciating Spenser's poetry in the context of his age and our own * understanding the language, themes and characters of the poems * easy to find entries arranged by subject.