Pierce Penniless's Supplication To The Devil

by Thomas Nashe

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Classics, History, Drama

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1592

About the author

Thomas Nashe (November 1567 – c. 1601) was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist.

Reviews

[Richard Seltzer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading Pierce Penniless by Nashe. The London pamphlets of Elizabethan days were like today's tweets. Rapidly dashed off commentary on contemporary events and people, sometimes humorous, sometimes venomous. Tech changes. But much of human nature remains constant.

(I read this as research for a novel of mine now entitled Shakespeare's Twin Sister).

[abby murrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can now honestly say that Elizabethan Pamphleteering is not my cup of tea. I spent most of my time pretending I was reading a gossip column.

[Chloe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a fan

[Poppy Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found it mildly interesting to discuss in seminar but my overall enjoyment of the book was low.

[Emma Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is another piece that I studied for a module at university that I am going back over again in order to bring it into an exam. As with many texts that I am revising, I don't think that I can say that I necessarily enjoyed reading this- for such a short book, I find the reading experience of this torturously slow. Nashe is a figure whose work I think is designed to be studied, rather than enjoyed (in a similar way to how you read Ulysses with the purpose of deciphering its message), and, therefore, does make for a rich examination into what I am interested in talking about: the grotesque. Nashe's writing feels like an Elizabeth version of Private Eye- it is satirical, vituperative, and humorously accurate in the way that he captures everyday vice; at a time of food scarcity and an economic downturn, Nashe turns his focus to excess and lack and, thus, creates a prose piece that is disturbingly focused on bodily grotesque. As someone who is an Angela Carter fan and enjoys bringing in elements of this into my own writing, I found this at times too much- Nashe's London is a perverse parallel and he has a particular flare for distorting, and rending repellent, even the consumption of food. At times, this feels quite misanthropic and, much like Swift's voice in Gulliver's Travels, is designed to unsettle- needless to say, this wasn't the pleasantest read! The narrative itself is psychedelic and scatological and very much failed to meet my expectations/aspirations that this would be some play on Marlowe's Dr Faustus.

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Desire and Power] I love the camp wealth redistrubition, satan obsessed Pierce Penniless but Nashe's writing was interesting, lets say that

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent banter.