SOURCE: "Artistic Coherence in The Unfortunate Traveller," in SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter, 1974, pp. 31-46.

Below, Leggatt discusses the lack of unity and coherence in The Unfortunate Traveller and finds that, while the work is disorganized, it moves toward several focusing devices that later became important to the novel genre.

To most of Nashe's readers, artistic coherence in The Unfortunate Traveller is, like Mrs. Harris, chiefly notable for its non-existence. This is how G. R. Hibbard describes Nashe's method in the book: "Interested in the immediate, local effect he can extract from an idea or situation, he works on it until he has exhausted its possibilities or grown bored with it, and then moves on to something else, unconcerned about its relationship with what has gone before, intent on showing his craftsmanship by treating it in an arresting manner and relying on his virtuosity...