John Lyly (1554?-1606) has come to seem an incidental player in a literary scene dominated by Shakespeare. But as the sixteenth century drew to a close, the relative status of the two writers was less defined.

Lyly was the principal court dramatist of the 1580s and author of the period's best-selling prose work, the wonderfully elaborated Euphues. A lack of modern editions means that his work has been neglected even by scholars. This edition draws the unique nature of his achievement to the attention of a wider audience and fills out our sense of a period to which his work was pivotal.

Three texts are included: a substantial extract from Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit, and the plays Campaspe (the first significant comedy of the English Renaissance) and Gallathea (his supreme achievement, it exercised a considerable influence on Shakespeare). Readers can at last engage in extenso Lyly's highly original style and mode of thought. The texts are newly edited from first editions; the extract from Euphues is the first modern spelling edition of the 1578 text.

With an introduction, and annotated for the non-specialist, this edition contributes to the revaluation of a key figure in English Renaissance literature.