"Pamphleteer, poet, story-teller, satirist, scholar, moralist and
jester . . ."
Thomas Nashe, a contemporary of Shakespeare, was writing in the 1590s,
the zenith of the English Renaissance. Rebellious in spirit,
conservative in philosophy, Nashe's brilliant and comic invective earned
him a reputation as the "English Juvenal" who "carried the deadly
stockado in his pen." In its mingling of the devout and bawdy,
scholarship and slang, its brutality and its constant awareness of the
imminence of death, his work epitomizes the ambivalence of the
Elizabethans. Above all, Nashe was a great entertainer, "his stories are
told for pleasure in telling, his jokes are cracked for the fun of them,
and his whole style speaks of a relish for living."
In addition to The Unfortunate Traveller, this volume contains
Pierce Penniless, The Terrors of the Night, Lenten Stuff and
The Choice of Valentines, and extracts from Christ's Tears over
Jerusalem, The Anatomy of Absurdity, and other works.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of
classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700
titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works
throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the
series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and
notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as
up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.