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Review
It is to the great credit of G.W. Pigman that this edition of Gascoigne's work so triumphantly guides the reader through the maze that is A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres ... This is an excellent edition of Gascoigne's work. Reformation Pigman's meticulous edition will ensure a more even-handed reading of Gascoigne, and will enable scholars to study A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres not merely as a precursor to something better, but as a significant collection in its own right. Early Modern Literary Studies There is an extensive and dependable glossary which, crucially, renders A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres a teachable text. And the commentary, running to nearly 300 pages, presents a scholarship that is dexterous, lucid, provocative, and as wide-ranging as Gascoigne's own writing. Early Modern Literary Studies To this exuberant, overflowing collection Pigman brings a scholarly clarity while avoiding subduing the vibrancy of Gascoigne's work, or offering resolved readings where there are none. Early Modern Literary Studies Makes a valuable contribution to sixteenth-century literary scholarship ... His [Pigman's] biographical introduction is compact but complete ... It is the notes that are this edition's finest achievement. Pigman's "Commentary" on Flowres is about five times the length of Prouty's "Critical Notes", and is a very impressive piece of scholarship ... Pigman has hit the mark, and Gascoigne's major work has found an editor for the new millennium. Sixteenth Century Journal This fine volume makes available for the first time an authoritative edition of Gascoigne's A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres with a full commentary and reliable supporting material ... The edition is the first to use A Hundreth as the copy-text and to include all the revisions and additional material from The Posies. Notes and Queries Professor Pigman is a thoughtful and rigorous editor who precisely identifies sources and allusions and provides meticulous translations of material in Latin, Italian, French, and Dutch. Notes and Queries The biographical introduction, a very concise and lucid summary of what is actually known about Gascoigne's life, will be required reading ... It will be an extremely useful tool (especially for undergraduates) when read alongside his [Gascoigne's] stated views in 'Certayne Notes of Instruction' (454-62), the earliest essay on English prosody and sometimes claimed as the earliest critical essay in English. Notes and Queries Thoroughly recommended to all scholars interested in mid-Elizabethan literature and language. Review of English Studies Pigman offers a detailed and illuminating commentary on the text, its allusions, echoes, sources, and keys to interpretation, as well as providing useful indexes and a glossary. If anything deserves to bring George Gascoigne back into the spotlight of serious attention, it is this judicious and scholarly edition. Clearly the result of some years of thoughtful preparation and research, G. W. Pigman's A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres is a worthy addition to the Oxford English Authors series and is a reminder of just how valuable responsible editing can be. Peter Beal, Times Literary Supplement
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This is the only edition of George Gascoigne's A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres to respect the integrity of the first edition, which he published as an anonymous anthology in 1573. Earlier editors either based their work on The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire, self-censored and published in 1575, or omitted the two plays, Supposes and Jocasta. But, from a bibliographical point of view, the plays are an integral part of the first edition, and the work that suffers most from revision is Gascoigne's masterpiece, The Adventures of Master F.J. The critical apparatus of this edition allows the reader to reconstruct the changes Gascoigne made to The Posies, and all the works which appear there for the first time are included. Half of the works in this edition, including the plays and Gascoigne's longest poem, 'The fruites of Warre', have never received any commentary before. The commentary closely studies Gascoigne's use of his sources, especially in his translations from the Italian, and situates his works in their literary and social milieux. It also includes all of the extensive marginal notes that Gabriel Harvey made in his copy of The Posies. The biographical introduction corrects a number of mistakes in Prouty's standard biography and, in particular, offers a fuller, more accurate account of Gascoigne's military service in the Netherlands.
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