"Those at the periphery of society often figure obsessively for those at its center, and never more so than with the rogues of early modern England. Whether as

A definitive collection of critical essays on the literary and cultural impact of the early modern rogue

The "rogue," a term that described criminals, prostitutes, vagrants, beggars, and the unemployed, dominated the pages of early modern popular crime literature.

Steve Mentz provides a comprehensive historicist and formalist account of prose romance, the most important genre of Elizabethan fiction. He explores how author

Woodbridge shows that the prevailing image of the vagrant poor in Renaissance England--sturdy, comical, resourceful rogues who were adept at living on the fring