RADICAL PASTORAL, 1381-1594. Appropriation and the Writing of Religious Controversy.

First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Signed by the author. Publisher's original teal blue illustrated boards with titles in white and light blue to the upper board and spine. With eight black and white illustrations throughout. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, bright and fresh. The contents, with a small mark to the front pastedown and with a presentation inscription from the author on the front endpaper, are otherwise clean throughout.

Inscribed in black ink on the front endpaper "Dear Rich, / Happy Christmas / 2010. / No need to read past / the acknowledgements! / Mike". The recipient is Dr Richard Rowland, editor and author on the Renaissance and classical mythology, and Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. '[The book] makes a vigorous case for the existence of a highly politicized tradition of 'polemical pastoral' which stretched across the whole of the sixteenth century, a tradition that has been largely marginalized by both medievalists and early modernists' (publisher's blurb).