The English Rogue
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The English Rogue (1665) is a satirical novel by Richard Head.
Its tales of drastic adventures were based on the model of Spanish rogue stories (such as Lazarillo de Tormes 1554), which were fashionable due to the contemporary publication of Scarron’s Roman Comique (or Comical Romance, so the English title which established the genre), and savory with the events Head could claim to have based on his personal experience. The censor, so Winstanley reported, rejected the manuscript as “too much smutty”. The softened book edition sold brilliantly and created a complex publishing history: The first edition published by Henry Marsh sold out within the year. Marsh died that very year, Francis Kirkman the business partner, to whom Marsh had been indebted, secured the rights and sold Head's title in four further editions between 1666 and 1667. It remains unclear how the ensuing volumes two, three, and four, published in 1671, 1674 and 1680, came to be written (a fifth was promised and never appeared). Winstanley speaks of Head as the author indiscriminately. In the dedication to his Proteus redivivus (1675) Head, however, explicitly denies a hand in any part but the first. Kirkman asserted none the less that he and Head were responsible for the third and fourth parts. The preface to the latter is signed by both men – facts which make Head's belated disclaimer suspicious.
