Abraham Fraunce belonged to an active circle of writers in the 1570s and 1580s who were associated with Philip Sidney, his brother Robert, and his sister Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. Although he did write a play in Latin and was an experimenter in verse, Fraunce was not himself what would now be termed a creative writer. His most significant works in his short career of publication (from 1587 to 1592) were translations, textbooks in rhetoric and logic, and a work of mythological explication. These were important in the intellectual life of his time and are still of great interest to anyone who wishes to understand how the learning of the university was disseminated in the broader culture of the Elizabethan period. Fraunce was extremely learned and sharply attuned to literary fashion; his abilities made him a successful popularizer of Latin and Continental materials, and he contributed significantly to the...