SOURCE: "Thomas Deloney's Jacke of Newbury: A Horatio Alger Story for the Sixteenth Century," in Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 23, No. 3, Winter, 1989, pp. 165–77.

In the essay below, the critic examines what he sees as Deloney's ironic treatment of Jack of Newbury 's rags-to-riches story. Mustazza argues that Jack's careful attention to his own best interests and his ability to manipulate others are just as significant as his altruism and class consciousness.

Louis B. Wright begins his book Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England with this observation:

In the furtherance of his social ambitions, the Elizabethan business man evolved a philosophy of success which emphasized thrift, honesty, industry, and godliness…. Naive, awkward, and crude as were the Elizabethan citizen's first attempts to take his place among the learned or the gentle, he possessed a strength of mind and character which gave vitality to his thinking and enabled him to propagate...