GREENE, Robert (1558-1592). Greenes Arcadia, or Menaphon: Camillaes alarum to slumber Eupheus cell at Silexedra. London: W. Stansby for J. Smethwicke, 1616.
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GREENE, Robert (1558-1592). Greenes Arcadia, or Menaphon: Camillaes alarum to slumber Eupheus cell at Silexedra. London: W. Stansby for J. Smethwicke, 1616.

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GREENE, Robert (1558-1592). Greenes Arcadia, or Menaphon: Camillaes alarum to slumber Eupheus cell at Silexedra. London: W. Stansby for J. Smethwicke, 1616.

4° (182 x 132mm). Black letter and roman type. Printer's device on title, ornamental headpiece and initial. Early 20th-century crushed red morocco gilt, gilt edges.

Fourth edition of Greene's widely-read 'love pamphlet', as he termed his prose romances. In its daring plot, the heroine Sephestia is wooed unknowingly by her husband, father, and son. Arcadia first appeared as Menophon, the changed title probably being a marketing move by its 1600 publisher to associate it with the increasing popularity of Sidney's work of that name. Considered the first celebrity author (ODNB), Greene was one of the University Wits, a group of clever young authors which also included Marlowe and Thomas Nashe. Nashe, enfant terrible of Elizabethan literary circles who was caricatured as Moth in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, contributed an important 'Preface to the Gentleman Students of both Universities' which serves as a contemporary survey of English literature. RARE. Previous editions are known in only 4 (of which only one is complete), 1, and 5 copies respectively, all in institutions. The present edition is thus the earliest obtainable. The Pforzheimer catalague notes 3 copies of this fourth edition then in private hands; two have subsequently entered institutions. STC 12275; Pforzheimer 425; Grolier, Langland to Wither 126.
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Please note that leaves E4 and F1 have been supplied from another copy.

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