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PREFACE


This edition of Lodge's "Rosalynde" has grown out of a need felt by
the editor for an example of Elizabethan prose suitable for use in a
general survey course in English, designed for college freshmen.
"Rosalynde," of all the books that were considered, seemed on the
whole best to fulfill the desired conditions. As a pastoral romance it
belongs to a class of books which, if not peculiar to the Elizabethan
age, is at least thoroughly representative of it. Moreover, the story
is entirely unobjectionable, nothing being found in it that could
offend any reader. The "Rosalynde," being one of the shortest of the
prose romances, is not open to the objections that might be urged
against the more famous, but also more discursive, "Arcadia" of
Sidney. Its close relations with Shakespeare's "As You Like It," which
is also read in the course, and its added interest as one of the
precursors of the modern novel, additionally recommend it. Finally,