Anthony Munday: The Honourable, Pleasant and Rare Conceited Historie of Palmendos

This is the first critical edition of The Honourable, Pleasant and Rare Conceited Historie of Palmendos (London, 1589), a chivalric romance translated into English by Anthony Munday. The original text, Primaleón de Grecia I (Salamanca, 1512), soon became a bestseller on the Spanish market and was translated into many continental European languages. Munday’s translation derives from the French version by François de Vernassal (1550). It comprises the first thirty-two chapters of the French text and focuses on the adventures of Palmendos on his journey to Constantinople.

Anthony Munday died in 1633 at the age of seventy-three. He left behind a long career as a poet, playwright, author of civic pageantry, chronicle writer, pamphleteer and translator that made him one of the most versatile and prolific authors of his age. A controversial figure in his own time, he worked as a spy for Elizabeth’s government and wrote and translated works of religious controversy as well as pamphlets on contemporary European politics.

This is an original-spelling edition that produces a text as close as possible to Munday’s original manuscript.