The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare

Long before the English novel took its familiar modern shape, writers were experimenting with romances, short tales and stories drawn from everyday life. Jean Jules Jusserand follows these early forms through the age of Shakespeare, discussing authors such as Lyly, Greene, Lodge, Sidney and Nash. His literary history connects their writing with printing, translations from French and Italian, courtly fashions and the reading interests of women. The preface explains his effort to recover overlooked writers and consider their work on its own terms.

A discussion of Sidney's Arcadia shows how closely Jusserand reads these older books. He examines its origins as a work written for Sidney's sister, its ornate prose and the social distance between its princes and shepherds. Author biographies, quoted passages and accounts of literary influence give readers a way into unfamiliar early fiction. The book suits those interested in the prose literature surrounding Shakespeare and in the sources from which later English storytelling developed.