{"product_id":"paper-monsters-9780812251296","title":"Paper Monsters","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003ePaper Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e, Samuel Fallon charts the striking rise, at the turn to the seventeenth century, of a new species of textual being: the serial, semifictional persona. When Thomas Nashe introduced his charismatic alter ego Pierce Penilesse in a 1592 text, he described the figure as a paper monster, not fashioned but begotten into something curiously like life. The next decade bore this description out, as Pierce took on a life of his own, inspiring other writers to insert him into their own works. And Pierce was hardly alone: such figures as the polemicist Martin Marprelate, the lovers Philisides and Astrophil, the shepherd-laureate Colin Clout, the prodigal wit Euphues, and, in an odd twist, the historical author Robert Greene all outgrew their fictional origins, moving from text to text and author to author, purporting to speak their own words, even surviving their creators'' deaths, and installing themselves in the process as agents at large in the real world of writing, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[\u003ci\u003ePaper Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e] throughout is elegantly written, persuasively argued, and well anchored in current theoretical and critical debates: it will be the starting point for any future consideration of literary personae and the role they played in the early modern literary field independently of the authors who created or inspired them.\" * \u003ci\u003eJournal of British Studies\u003c\/i\u003e *\u003cbr\u003e\"Samuel Fallon is a skilled and often revelatory close reader of literature who displays a remarkable familiarity with minor writers and publishers of late Elizabethan England. Capacious and ambitious in its scope, \u003ci\u003ePaper Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e is a distinctive and highly accomplished piece of literary criticism.\" * Alan Stewart, Columbia University *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. Robert Greene's Ghosts\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. Rehearsing Colin Clout\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Astrophil, Philisides, and the Coterie in Print\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. Pierce Penilesse and the Art of Distinctions\u003cbr\u003e Coda\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49405740679511,"sku":"9780812251296","price":49.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780812251296.jpg?v=1730493448","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/paper-monsters-9780812251296","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}