author
Thomas Nash
1567–1601
A sharp, restless voice of Elizabethan London, he turned pamphlets, satire, and fiction into something fast-moving and unexpectedly modern. Best known for The Unfortunate Traveller and Pierce Penniless, he wrote with wit, nerve, and a talent for stirring debate.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Thomas Nashe, also spelled Nash, was an English Elizabethan writer baptized in 1567 and thought to have died around 1601. He is remembered as a playwright, poet, satirist, and especially as a brilliant pamphleteer whose prose helped shape the lively literary culture of late 16th-century London.
He studied at St John's College, Cambridge, and later became associated with the circle often called the University Wits. His best-known works include Pierce Penniless and The Unfortunate Traveller, a vivid, unruly book often described as an early English picaresque novel. His writing is energetic, funny, argumentative, and often delightfully combative.
Nashe's career was marked by literary quarrels as well as invention. Even centuries later, he stands out for the speed and personality of his voice: clever, observant, and always ready to provoke a reaction.