SOURCE: "A Different Thomas Deloney: Thomas of Reading Reconsidered," in Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. VI, No. xviii, August, 1982, pp. 197–202.

In the following essay, Domnarski maintains that Thomas of Reading offers a penetrating, realistic analysis of the social tensions created by radical changes in the Elizabethan economic system.z7While Greene wrote for the young gallants, 'how young gentlemen that aim at honour should leuel the end of their affections',³⁴ and Petty for 'Gentle Readers, whom by my will I would haue only Gentlewomen',³⁵ Deloney dedicated his novels to the 'famous Cloth Workers in England'³⁶ or 'To the Master and Wardens of the worshipfull company of Cordwaynors',³⁷ and wrote as an artisan for the jolly companions of his craft, with whom he had worked at his loom in Norwich or tramped the high roads of East Anglia. But he by no means breaks away altogether from the traditional separation...