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Unfortunate Traveller, The, or The life of Jacke Wilton

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | 640 words | Copyright

Unfortunate Traveller, The, or The life of Jacke Wilton, a prose tale of adventure by T. Nashe, published 1594, the earliest picaresque romance in English, and the most remarkable work of the kind before Defoe.

Jack Wilton is ‘a certain kind of an appendix or page’ attending on the court of Henry VIII, who lives by his wits, playing tricks on a niggardly old victualler and other gullible occupants of the camp, and gets whipped for his pains. Subsequent travels take him to Italy (as page to the earl of Surrey), and to Wittenberg, where he hears Luther's disputations. The book includes much literary parody and pastiche.

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Unfortunate Traveller, The, or The life of Jacke Wilton." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Unfortunate Traveller, The, or The life of Jacke Wilton." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-UnfrtntTrvllrThrThlffJckW.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Unfortunate Traveller, The, or The life of Jacke Wilton." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-UnfrtntTrvllrThrThlffJckW.html

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