Jack Wilton, a page at the court of Henry VIII, cheats his way through the English camp in France and then wanders across Europe, meeting Erasmus, Thomas More and the Earl of Surrey, and witnessing war, plague, rape and executions in Italy. Edmund Gosse’s essay on Nashe’s life opens the volume.
First printed in 1594, this wild, scurrilous tale is often called the first English picaresque novel. Download the free EPUB.