Publisher's Synopsis
This book explores the ways in which three exemplary English writers negotiated new social spaces for fiction writing, creating authorial identities that sought to escape the stigma of prodigality encoded in the dismissive cultural attitudes toward poetic ""toys"" by demonstrating the social value of fiction. From John Lyly's Euphues to Philip Sidney's Arcadia to Robert Greene's cony-catching pamphlets, this book traces a cultural trajectory from relatively conventional patronage appeals to increasingly audacious claims of ""authority.
