Euphues The Anatomie of Wit: Very pleasant for all Gentlemen to read, and most necessary to remember. Wherein are contained the delights that wit followeth in his youth, by the pleasantnesse of loue: and the happinesse he reapeth in age, by the perfectnesse of wisdom. By Iohn Lylie, Master of Art. Corrected and Augmented. [And] Euphues and his England. Containing his Voyage and Adventures: Mixed with sundry pretty Discourses of honest Loue, the Description of the Country, the Court and the manners of the Ile. Delightfull to be read, and nothing hurtfull to be regarded: wherein there is small offence by lightnes giuen to the wise, and lesse occasion of loosenesse proffered to the wanton. By Iohn Lilie, Master of Arts. Commend it, or amend it

London: Printed by John Haviland, 1636. 17th EDITION of "Anatomie of Wit"; 19th EDITION of "His England". THE LAST of the 17th c. EDITIONS. Hardcover. Fine. An unsophisticated copy in contemporary blind-ruled sheep (wear to the extremities, small defects at head and tail of spine, upper board with two fractures in the leather, corners bumped. Internally generally fresh. There is marginal staining and a little wear to the edges of the title page and final leaf; the upper margins of the closing gatherings have minor abrasions. Some contemporary under-scoring and other minor blemishes. Provenance: numerous early owners' names on the front flyleaf, including the inscription "Mary Cooper, her booke". John Lyly's celebrated "Euphues", "arguably the first English novel" was published as two separate, closely-associated works, the first "Euphues. The Anatomy of Wit", in 1578; the second "Euphues and his England", in 1580. Enormously popular, the book went through many editions into the 17th c.

"John Lyly (1554-1606) was a native of Kent, and, in his day, a noted son of Oxford. His career was one of strenuous effort, ill requited because ill-directed. His nice, fastidious temperament, which marked him off from the roaring section of university wits, seems to have rendered him ineffective in actual life. At Oxford, he missed recognition; his ambition to succeed to the Mastership of the Revels was quietly ignored; while his closing years, passed in penury and neglect, form a saddening sequel to the efforts of one, who, in his time, had adorned the stage, had beautified the conversation of exquisites 'of learned tendency' and had been the fruitful occasion of much wit in others.

"The work for which he is famous appeared in two installments. 'Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit' was 'lying bound on the stationers stall' by the Christmas of 1578; 'Euphues and his England', the second part, appeared in 1580. Together, they form an extensive moral treatise, and, incidentally, our first English novel. The whole hangs together by the thinnest of plots, which is, indeed, more a means to an end than an end in itself. Euphues, a young man of Athens, arrives at Naples, where he forms a friendship with young Philautus. He falls in love with Lucilla, the betrothed of Philautus, and is duly jilted by that fickle mistress.

"This is all the action of 'The Anatomy of Wit': but the moralizing element is something more considerable. The ancient Eubulus discourses on the follies of youth; Euphues, himself, on the subject of friendship. The complications brought about by the action of Lucilla lead to much bitter moralizing upon fickleness in general, while Euphues, jilted, discusses his soul and indicts 'a Cooling Carde for all Fond Lovers.' Over and above all this, the work contains the hero's private papers, his essays and letters; and opportunities are seized for inveighing against dress, and for discoursing upon such diverse subjects as marriage and travel, education and atheism. In 'Euphues and his England', the scene changes from Italy to England. The two friends, now reconciled, proceed to Canterbury, where they are entertained by one Fidus, a pastoral figure of considerable attractiveness; Philautus soon becomes involved in the toils of love, while Euphues plays the part of a philosophical spectator. The former lays siege to the heart of one whose affections are already bestowed, and so, with philosophy for his comfort, he enters upon the wooing of another, with more auspicious result. This brings the action to a close, and Euphues leaves England, eulogizing the country and the women it contains, and returns forthwith to nurse his melancholy within his cell at Silexedra.
"The style, known as Euphuistic, won a following in its day, and has since become one of the most familiar of literary phenomena.... Lyly aimed at precision and emphasis, in the first place, by carefully balancing his words and phrases, by using rhetorical questions and by repeating the same idea in different and striking forms. Alliteration, puns and further word play were other devices employed to the same end. For ornament, in the second place, he looked mainly to allusions and similes of various kinds. He alludes to historical personages found in Plutarch and Pliny, to mythological figures taken from Ovid and Vergil. But his most daring ornamentation lies in his wholesale introduction of recondite knowledge; he draws similes from folklore, medicine and magic, above all from the 'Natural History' of Pliny, and this mixture of quaint device and naïve science resulted in a style which appealed irresistibly to his contemporaries.

"Apart from its prose style, the 'Euphues' of Lyly exercised considerable influence upon its author's contemporaries. On Shakespeare, to mention only one, its effect is marked. Some of the dramatist's characters, such as his pairs of friends, the sententious old man Polonius and the melancholy philosopher Jacques, recall 'Euphues' in different ways. Verbal resemblances also exist: Shakespeare's utterances on friendship, and his famous bee-passage, place his indebtedness beyond all doubt, even supposing his numerous similes drawn from actual or supposed natural history to be but drafts made upon the common possessions of the age." (The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes, Volume III. Renaissance and Reformation, XVI. Elizabethan Prose Fiction. § 3. John Lyly.).