Eight novels employed by English dramatic poets of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Originally published by Barnaby Riche in the year 1581, and reprinted from a copy of that date in the Bodleian Library

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8vo. pp. [2], xvi, 224. Signatures: [a]8 b B-P8. Original cloth. Includes prospectus for the Shakespeare Society. With reproduction of original title page: Riche his Farewell to militarie profession: conteining verie pleasaunt discourses fit for a peaceable tyme, Gathered together [...] by Barnabe Riche (London, Robart Walley, 1581, STC 20996). Several of the tales are from Italian sources. The (unnamed) editor, John Payne Collier, received the transcript of the unique Bodleian first edition from James Orchard Halliwell. The "Conclusion" contains a ninth story, Belthaser, similar to Machiavelli's Marriage of Belphegor. Content: Sappho, duke of Mantona Of Apolonius and Silla Of Nicander and Lucilla Of Fineo and Fiamma Of two brethren and their wives Of Gonsales and his vertuous wife Agatha Of Aramanthus, borne a leper Of Phylotus and Emilia Conclusion See A. & J. Freeman, John Payne Collier. Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, 2004, I, p. 477; II, A66. Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.