Fictions of authorship in late Elizabethan narratives: Euphues in Arcadia

John Lyly, Robert Greene, and Thomas Lodge created the pulp fiction of the later sixteenth century.

Their bestselling pamphlets combined sensational plots, adventurous heroines and self-conscious narrators.

These authors responded to their eager and diverse readers by mischievously mixing high and low literary traditions, the urban world of Lyly's cult hero Euphues and the pastoral lifestyle of Arcadia.

This book examines how these highly educated writers dealt with the constraints of mass market authorship, and replaces their often neglected narratives at the heart of Elizabethan literature.