The Gentle Craft

Front Cover
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Jan 1, 2007 - Literary Criticism - 167 pages
In works such as 'The Gentle Craft' it is possible to discover the beginnings of the literary form that is to gestate into the novel - long before the more universally recognised contributions of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding and Tobias Smollett. Shoemakers in London form the basis of the story.
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2007)

Little is known about the life of Thomas Deloney. Most of Deloney's literary production seems to have taken the form of ballads; however, his four prose narratives are admired for their depiction of character and popular bourgeois culture, and their handling of dialogue. The Gentle Craft (1 and 2) (1597--98) portrays the world of cobblers, while Thomas of Reading (1599?) resembles later historical novels. Jack of Newbery (1597-98), published in eight editions by 1619, presents the adventures of an upwardly mobile apprentice who marries his master's widow and goes on to become a power in the realm.

Bibliographic information