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The Terrors of the Night
'...dreaming of bears, or fire, or water...'
The greatest of Elizabethan pamphleteers, Nashe had a magical ability with words, never more so than in The Terrors of the Night, where he mulls over ghosts, demons, nightmares and the supernatural.
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.
Thomas Nashe (1567-?1601).
Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works is available in Penguin Classics.
The greatest of Elizabethan pamphleteers, Nashe had a magical ability with words, never more so than in The Terrors of the Night, where he mulls over ghosts, demons, nightmares and the supernatural.
Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.
Thomas Nashe (1567-?1601).
Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works is available in Penguin Classics.
54 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1594
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
December 6, 2016
HA! Penguin really tried to jazz this one up with their incredibly misleading blurb:
鈥淒emonic horrors and spirits dreamt up by the most exuberant, inventive prose writer of Elizabethan England鈥�
Sounds quite cool doesn鈥檛 it? It鈥檚 a shame it鈥檚 so falsifying to the actual work. Despite the fact that this has nothing to do with horror or spirits, I find it slightly biased when a book publisher says something as strong as this. How could anyone actually make such a claim? Has the publisher read every single last prose writer of Elizabethan England? I doubt it. It鈥檚 nothing but marketing. A few of the blurbs in this lot have been dramatized, but none more so than this one.
So I was rather disappointed when I read an overly worded piece of prose that tried to teach me how the devil can sneak into everyman鈥檚 life. Yawn. Penguin you can do much better- I could name so many more important works of literature you could have put in this edition's place! (waves fist in the air)
Penguin Little Black Classic- 54
The Little Black Classic Collection by penguin looks like it contains lots of hidden gems. I couldn鈥檛 help it; they looked so good that I went and bought them all. I shall post a short review after reading each one. No doubt it will take me several months to get through all of them! Hopefully I will find some classic authors, from across the ages, that I may not have come across had I not bought this collection.
鈥淒emonic horrors and spirits dreamt up by the most exuberant, inventive prose writer of Elizabethan England鈥�
Sounds quite cool doesn鈥檛 it? It鈥檚 a shame it鈥檚 so falsifying to the actual work. Despite the fact that this has nothing to do with horror or spirits, I find it slightly biased when a book publisher says something as strong as this. How could anyone actually make such a claim? Has the publisher read every single last prose writer of Elizabethan England? I doubt it. It鈥檚 nothing but marketing. A few of the blurbs in this lot have been dramatized, but none more so than this one.
So I was rather disappointed when I read an overly worded piece of prose that tried to teach me how the devil can sneak into everyman鈥檚 life. Yawn. Penguin you can do much better- I could name so many more important works of literature you could have put in this edition's place! (waves fist in the air)
Penguin Little Black Classic- 54
The Little Black Classic Collection by penguin looks like it contains lots of hidden gems. I couldn鈥檛 help it; they looked so good that I went and bought them all. I shall post a short review after reading each one. No doubt it will take me several months to get through all of them! Hopefully I will find some classic authors, from across the ages, that I may not have come across had I not bought this collection.
August 20, 2018
"Truth is ever drawn and painted naked, and I have lent her but a leathern patched cloak at most to keep her from the cold; that is, that she come not off too lamely and coldly."
- Thomas Nashe, The Terrors of the Night
Vol 30 of my Penguin . A contemporary of Shakespeare and Robert Burton, Nashe's longish pamphlet feels a bit like some funky combination of Robert Burton's (Nashe once wrote a small book called 'The Anatomy of Absurdity') mixed with a bit of Edgar Allen Poe. It is a pre-Freudian look at dreams and night terrors. In an age that believed in witchcraft, portents, elves, and fairies, Nashe proposes that:
"A dream is nothing else but the bubbling scum or froth of the fancy, which the day hath left undigested; or an after-feast made of the fragments of idle imaginations."
I get how Nashe might not be everyone's bag. Late 16th-century English prose and poetry isn't everyone's welt and gard. But I adore it. I love how playful they are with ideas. London is a city that is beginning to stretch its linguistic muscles. I'm going to put '' and 'Anatomy of Absurdity' on my to-read shelf.
It is also interesting to note that there are some similarities between Act 5 of Shakespeare's and Nashe's views of dreams. Both authors rationally dismiss dreams as being products of the dreamer's imagination. I haven't read anything to suggest that Shakespeare folded any of Nashe's ideas into his plays, but Shakespeare was a notorious borrower of good ideas and it wouldn't surprise me that he took some of Nashe's ideas and funked them up a bit for one of his great plays.
- Thomas Nashe, The Terrors of the Night
Vol 30 of my Penguin . A contemporary of Shakespeare and Robert Burton, Nashe's longish pamphlet feels a bit like some funky combination of Robert Burton's (Nashe once wrote a small book called 'The Anatomy of Absurdity') mixed with a bit of Edgar Allen Poe. It is a pre-Freudian look at dreams and night terrors. In an age that believed in witchcraft, portents, elves, and fairies, Nashe proposes that:
"A dream is nothing else but the bubbling scum or froth of the fancy, which the day hath left undigested; or an after-feast made of the fragments of idle imaginations."
I get how Nashe might not be everyone's bag. Late 16th-century English prose and poetry isn't everyone's welt and gard. But I adore it. I love how playful they are with ideas. London is a city that is beginning to stretch its linguistic muscles. I'm going to put '' and 'Anatomy of Absurdity' on my to-read shelf.
It is also interesting to note that there are some similarities between Act 5 of Shakespeare's and Nashe's views of dreams. Both authors rationally dismiss dreams as being products of the dreamer's imagination. I haven't read anything to suggest that Shakespeare folded any of Nashe's ideas into his plays, but Shakespeare was a notorious borrower of good ideas and it wouldn't surprise me that he took some of Nashe's ideas and funked them up a bit for one of his great plays.
July 29, 2016
Reading the reviews on this page I can鈥檛 see much love for Nashe鈥檚 little essay. That is hardly surprising. Extracted from the context of his other works, and without historical introduction, it is a curious and unsatisfactory beast. And yet I love Nashe鈥檚 rambling, wordy, preposterous style, and this is one of my favourite of his works: it is like listening to the monologue of a half-drunk scholar, perhaps a minor character from a Shakespearean play, riffing endlessly on whatever comes to mind that is vaguely related to his topic.
Rereading the essay recently what struck me was the picture that it paints of what might be called the Elizabethan magical world-view 鈥� Nashe鈥檚 universe is densely populated with devils. They fill every corner of his Enlightenment consciousness. He writes:
鈥淲hat do we talk of one devil? There is not a room in any man鈥檚 house but is pestered and close packed with a camp-royal of devils. Chrysostom saith the air and earth are three parts inhabited with spirits. Hereunto the philosopher alluded when he said nature made no voids in the whole universal, for no place (be it no bigger than a pock-hole in a man鈥檚 face) but is close thronged with them. Infinite millions of them will hang swarming about a worm-eaten nose鈥︹€�
This startling vision of the demon-infested universe seems almost to prefigure germ theory 鈥� remarkable given that Nashe wrote at a time of plague鈥�
Rereading the essay recently what struck me was the picture that it paints of what might be called the Elizabethan magical world-view 鈥� Nashe鈥檚 universe is densely populated with devils. They fill every corner of his Enlightenment consciousness. He writes:
鈥淲hat do we talk of one devil? There is not a room in any man鈥檚 house but is pestered and close packed with a camp-royal of devils. Chrysostom saith the air and earth are three parts inhabited with spirits. Hereunto the philosopher alluded when he said nature made no voids in the whole universal, for no place (be it no bigger than a pock-hole in a man鈥檚 face) but is close thronged with them. Infinite millions of them will hang swarming about a worm-eaten nose鈥︹€�
This startling vision of the demon-infested universe seems almost to prefigure germ theory 鈥� remarkable given that Nashe wrote at a time of plague鈥�
October 8, 2021
Po pierwsze - nie wiem dlaczego, ale my艣la艂am, 偶e to b臋dzie kr贸tkie opowiadanie, a nie esej.
Po drugie - czytanie tego to istny terror.
Po drugie - czytanie tego to istny terror.
March 18, 2016
Well that was something and a half this man can ramble, really ramble. If he could focus on anything for more than a page without digressing than wow. If blathering was a sport England would be world leaders with him.
Why three stars? Because the text is true, it has not been modernised you can feel its age and that is what counts the purity of the text and being a lover and a collector of old words... Tasty indeed!
Why three stars? Because the text is true, it has not been modernised you can feel its age and that is what counts the purity of the text and being a lover and a collector of old words... Tasty indeed!
August 14, 2018
very cool + funny elizabethan pamphlet with some wild prose and great jokes. learn all about devils inhabiting the air around you in their millions, humours in your body bubbling up and causing bad dreams, some great phrases ("a worm-eaten nose", "aged mumping beldams") and a funny digression about charlatans. also cool are the many negative reviews on here incensed that this isn't some kind of gothic novel
October 14, 2023
Quite a difficult book to read as I had to keep referring to the front of the book where explanations / translations of the Elizabethan words used in the book are given.
Thomas Nashe writes inventively about all the demons and spirits that come out during the night and where these spirits come from to torment the human soul. Woe betide anyone who doesn't do good during the daylight hours as when the Day of Judgment comes all the events of the night time will outweigh most people's actions during the day.
Thomas Nashe writes inventively about all the demons and spirits that come out during the night and where these spirits come from to torment the human soul. Woe betide anyone who doesn't do good during the daylight hours as when the Day of Judgment comes all the events of the night time will outweigh most people's actions during the day.
August 31, 2015
The real terror of the night is the prospect of reading this book again. Thank god it was so short or I don't think I would've gotten through it.
I have to be honest: I have absolutely no idea what on earth he was on about throughout. My eyes kind of glazed over after trying to comprehend the horrific drivel in front of me. I picked up some misogynistic comments and something about demons of the four elements, but other than that, it was all so vapid and mind-numbingly tedious that it was hard to concentrate.
I have to be honest: I have absolutely no idea what on earth he was on about throughout. My eyes kind of glazed over after trying to comprehend the horrific drivel in front of me. I picked up some misogynistic comments and something about demons of the four elements, but other than that, it was all so vapid and mind-numbingly tedious that it was hard to concentrate.
August 24, 2016
Hmm. As others have pointed out in their reviews, the back of the book says 'Demonic horrors and spirits dreamt up by the most exuberant, inventive prose writer of Elizabethan England'.
This isn't really what I got from this (I read to the midpoint, and then DNF).
To me it was a tiresome rant about the devil and the influence of the devil, spirits, dreams and superstitions.
This was a rambling, over-wordy, with aged prose and was very hard to read. For me, it was regrettably easy to put down, and difficult to pick up. I actually said to myself today, I would rather just sit here with my eyes closed than read another page of this book; and then I did for about 10 minutes.
I will, of course be giving Mr Nashe a wide berth from now on.
Lucky to squeeze 2 stars from me, only because I forgive it the aged prose etc given its was published in 1594.
This isn't really what I got from this (I read to the midpoint, and then DNF).
To me it was a tiresome rant about the devil and the influence of the devil, spirits, dreams and superstitions.
This was a rambling, over-wordy, with aged prose and was very hard to read. For me, it was regrettably easy to put down, and difficult to pick up. I actually said to myself today, I would rather just sit here with my eyes closed than read another page of this book; and then I did for about 10 minutes.
I will, of course be giving Mr Nashe a wide berth from now on.
Lucky to squeeze 2 stars from me, only because I forgive it the aged prose etc given its was published in 1594.
April 11, 2021
I kinda liked it, in a weird way, for the pure insane rambling that it was. It was not what I would call good necessarily, but it was amusing in its own sort of way.
However, it was nothing like the blurb suggested, and it was much more like a religious rant than a scary story which is what I expected. Also, apparently worms are just spirits....
However, it was nothing like the blurb suggested, and it was much more like a religious rant than a scary story which is what I expected. Also, apparently worms are just spirits....
December 15, 2022
The Terrors of the Night by Thomas Nashe
Book 53/52
Made no sense and i hated every second.
Book 53/52
Made no sense and i hated every second.
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February 4, 2017
Thomas Nashe was a 16th Century English playwright and poet, and is considered as the greatest Elizabethan Pamphleteer and was an early purveyor of erotic poetry. He is most famous for his work Summer's Last Will and Testament and The Unfortunate Traveller.
The Terrors of the Night is the 30th Little Black Classic and it has thus far been the worst. I'm loath to even give it any stars at all as it was terrible written, confusing and extremely misogynistic. Whilst I can tolerate historical religious writings, Nashe is so utterly mind-numbingly boring he cannot even bring me to find anything good about his writing, except perhaps the few references he makes to English folklore and makes a lightly amusing joke about the terribleness of Holland cheese:
"God is my witness, in all this relation I borrow no essential part from stretched-out invention, nor have I one jot abused my informations; only for the recreation of my readers, whom loath to tire with a coarse home-spin tale that should dull them worse than Holland cheese."
There is no flow to his writings; sentences blend in to one another using punctuation which makes the sentence itself around two pages long on average. He has a tendency to ramble and forget what he is speaking of, then return to it several pages later.
I would suggest you skip this LBC completely, but if you're looking to complete your collection, there's really no reason why you should read it.
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The Terrors of the Night is the 30th Little Black Classic and it has thus far been the worst. I'm loath to even give it any stars at all as it was terrible written, confusing and extremely misogynistic. Whilst I can tolerate historical religious writings, Nashe is so utterly mind-numbingly boring he cannot even bring me to find anything good about his writing, except perhaps the few references he makes to English folklore and makes a lightly amusing joke about the terribleness of Holland cheese:
"God is my witness, in all this relation I borrow no essential part from stretched-out invention, nor have I one jot abused my informations; only for the recreation of my readers, whom loath to tire with a coarse home-spin tale that should dull them worse than Holland cheese."
There is no flow to his writings; sentences blend in to one another using punctuation which makes the sentence itself around two pages long on average. He has a tendency to ramble and forget what he is speaking of, then return to it several pages later.
I would suggest you skip this LBC completely, but if you're looking to complete your collection, there's really no reason why you should read it.
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July 2, 2017
The Penguin little black classics just keep on disappointing. This just should not be re-published, it's boring, it's pointless, it's just an old rant against witches and the devil and the evil that should stay forgotten.
January 9, 2023
鈥淚n another kind, witches may be said to meddle half with GOD and half with the Devil, because in their exorcisms, they use half scripture and half blasphemy.鈥�
I think the only reason I found this bearable was because I read it through the lens of Bakhtin鈥檚 carnivalesque in preparation for an essay. Without that, I don鈥檛 think I would have understood any of what I just read. With this in mind, I enjoyed how Nashe manifests chaos or 鈥榯error鈥� through food and the body.
I think the only reason I found this bearable was because I read it through the lens of Bakhtin鈥檚 carnivalesque in preparation for an essay. Without that, I don鈥檛 think I would have understood any of what I just read. With this in mind, I enjoyed how Nashe manifests chaos or 鈥榯error鈥� through food and the body.
June 24, 2023
Bro needs to touch some grass
Read
November 17, 20232/5
谓喂蠋胃蠅 蠈蟿喂 蔚委渭伪喂 伪蟺位蠋蟼 蟺慰位蠉 蠂伪味萎 谓伪 蟿慰 蔚魏蟿喂渭萎蟽蠅
蔚委蠂蔚 渭蔚蟻喂魏维 魏伪位维 蟽畏渭蔚委伪 蠈渭蠅蟼 蟿慰 渭蔚纬伪位蠉蟿蔚蟻慰 渭苇蟻慰蟼 萎蟿伪谓 未蠀蟽谓蠈畏蟿慰 魏伪喂 魏慰蠀蟻伪蟽蟿喂魏蠈,
蠂蔚喂蟻蠈蟿蔚蟻慰 伪蟺 蟿慰 畏渭蔚蟻慰位蠈纬喂慰 蟿慰蠀 魏蠅蟽蟿维魏畏, 未蔚谓 蔚委蠂蔚 魏蔚蠁维位伪喂伪, 蟽伪谓 伪蟿蔚位蔚委蠅蟿慰蟼 渭慰谓蠈位慰纬慰蟼 50 蟽蔚位委未蠅谓 渭蔚 伪蟽蠀谓伪蟻蟿畏蟽委蔚蟼
蔚委渭伪喂 蟽委纬慰蠀蟻畏 胃伪 蟿慰 未喂维尾伪味蔚 慰 henry 伪蟺 蟿慰 secret history
蠈渭蠅蟼 胃伪 伪蠁萎蟽蠅 伪蠀蟿蠈 蔚未蠋 蟺慰蠀 渭 维蟻蔚蟽蔚: the night is the devil's black book, wherein he recordeth all our transgressions
谓喂蠋胃蠅 蠈蟿喂 蔚委渭伪喂 伪蟺位蠋蟼 蟺慰位蠉 蠂伪味萎 谓伪 蟿慰 蔚魏蟿喂渭萎蟽蠅
蔚委蠂蔚 渭蔚蟻喂魏维 魏伪位维 蟽畏渭蔚委伪 蠈渭蠅蟼 蟿慰 渭蔚纬伪位蠉蟿蔚蟻慰 渭苇蟻慰蟼 萎蟿伪谓 未蠀蟽谓蠈畏蟿慰 魏伪喂 魏慰蠀蟻伪蟽蟿喂魏蠈,
蠂蔚喂蟻蠈蟿蔚蟻慰 伪蟺 蟿慰 畏渭蔚蟻慰位蠈纬喂慰 蟿慰蠀 魏蠅蟽蟿维魏畏, 未蔚谓 蔚委蠂蔚 魏蔚蠁维位伪喂伪, 蟽伪谓 伪蟿蔚位蔚委蠅蟿慰蟼 渭慰谓蠈位慰纬慰蟼 50 蟽蔚位委未蠅谓 渭蔚 伪蟽蠀谓伪蟻蟿畏蟽委蔚蟼
蔚委渭伪喂 蟽委纬慰蠀蟻畏 胃伪 蟿慰 未喂维尾伪味蔚 慰 henry 伪蟺 蟿慰 secret history
蠈渭蠅蟼 胃伪 伪蠁萎蟽蠅 伪蠀蟿蠈 蔚未蠋 蟺慰蠀 渭 维蟻蔚蟽蔚: the night is the devil's black book, wherein he recordeth all our transgressions
August 2, 2022
I think this is my least favourite book I鈥檝e ever read. Anticipating a short story or prose about gothic horrors of the night, all I got was a 50 page rant about living an immoral life. It鈥檚 boring, incoherent and preachy. Honest to god nothing I liked about it
January 5, 2024
this guy definitely got his degree in yapology at the university of yappington
February 8, 2016
Some things only really thrive in a single climate. Extract them from their chosen haunts and plop them down somewhere else, and they'll languish like a novice priest on a lads holiday in Ibiza. The Little Black Classics series is quite a noble undertaking. Amidst a few lesser-known works by more familiar writers, it's moved some fascinating figures from their lodgings in the literary fringes to a new home on supermarket shelves. The idea of Thomas Nashe sharing physical space with Heat magazine, discount spatulas and triple packs of custard creams is an amusing one, but maybe a little unfair on Nashe and his prospective readers (not to mention the spatulas). There's a road to someone like him, and it is not paved in airport novels. The shoppers who chance upon it will probably glean as much from The Terrors of the Night as they would from a Sanskrit copy of the Highway Code.
Thomas Nashe was an utterly fearless writer who mostly shot straight from the id, which is especially evident in these nocturnal scrawlings fuelled primarily by that burst of distilled energy reserves you sometimes muster up when you stay up long past your bedtime. His pen dervish dances across the page, never stopping to dwell on one point too long before spinning off into another. He was as unafraid as Milton to invent ten-dollar words for when the then fairly inchoate English language failed him. If you're willing to loosen up and read his works with the same permeability of a curious twelve year old, you should easily catch their gist through context alone; that's something the brain's quite good at if you let it. Decoding each writer's personal language is one of this reading lark's most absorbing side-games, and you play it, whether you wish to or not, from the first word of every book you start to read.
Once you've become conversant in Nashian you should probably grok fairly soon that this is some primo quality satire on how superstition has made his fellows' lives completely restrictive. They see demons in every pore. Portentous dreams govern their every action. How they feel is entirely at the disposal of how brackish and discoloured the four wells of humours might be at any given moment. There is some pretty clear thinking on display here for someone who's only really writing to distract himself from his acrimonious relationship with Morpheus (though one suspects that, like Sir James George Frazer and his beloved Golden Bough, Nashe finds the pagan mindset of his fellow countrymen and women holds an inexorable allure).
What really distinguishes Nashe from the more sober likes of Montaigne and other such essayists is that he always scored the most points whilst digressing, rather than in the midst of a concerted attack on an idea or issue. He was the type who was so confident in the sublimity of his style that he'd simply free-associate (under the banner of a very loose theme) to see how he might surprise himself. As to that style- he drew from all the bawdy tavern badinage he could find, melded it with a typical Renaissance bedrock of classical learning, and then spiced it with his own shamelessly showy loquacity for some of the English language's most original writing. Of course he's too good for a smegging supermarket shelf, and even its classiest denizens, lured in by the prospect of a rum old gothic horror loaded with seances and mad monks, will doubtless be left confused and frazzled. They're not to know they're basically reading the classiest, headiest blog ever written. (P.S. this is a good taster, but what you really need is Penguin's definitive The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works).
Thomas Nashe was an utterly fearless writer who mostly shot straight from the id, which is especially evident in these nocturnal scrawlings fuelled primarily by that burst of distilled energy reserves you sometimes muster up when you stay up long past your bedtime. His pen dervish dances across the page, never stopping to dwell on one point too long before spinning off into another. He was as unafraid as Milton to invent ten-dollar words for when the then fairly inchoate English language failed him. If you're willing to loosen up and read his works with the same permeability of a curious twelve year old, you should easily catch their gist through context alone; that's something the brain's quite good at if you let it. Decoding each writer's personal language is one of this reading lark's most absorbing side-games, and you play it, whether you wish to or not, from the first word of every book you start to read.
Once you've become conversant in Nashian you should probably grok fairly soon that this is some primo quality satire on how superstition has made his fellows' lives completely restrictive. They see demons in every pore. Portentous dreams govern their every action. How they feel is entirely at the disposal of how brackish and discoloured the four wells of humours might be at any given moment. There is some pretty clear thinking on display here for someone who's only really writing to distract himself from his acrimonious relationship with Morpheus (though one suspects that, like Sir James George Frazer and his beloved Golden Bough, Nashe finds the pagan mindset of his fellow countrymen and women holds an inexorable allure).
What really distinguishes Nashe from the more sober likes of Montaigne and other such essayists is that he always scored the most points whilst digressing, rather than in the midst of a concerted attack on an idea or issue. He was the type who was so confident in the sublimity of his style that he'd simply free-associate (under the banner of a very loose theme) to see how he might surprise himself. As to that style- he drew from all the bawdy tavern badinage he could find, melded it with a typical Renaissance bedrock of classical learning, and then spiced it with his own shamelessly showy loquacity for some of the English language's most original writing. Of course he's too good for a smegging supermarket shelf, and even its classiest denizens, lured in by the prospect of a rum old gothic horror loaded with seances and mad monks, will doubtless be left confused and frazzled. They're not to know they're basically reading the classiest, headiest blog ever written. (P.S. this is a good taster, but what you really need is Penguin's definitive The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works).
November 17, 2019
1.5 Stars
Read all my reviews on
I realize that in a collection of 80 (or 127) works, not everything can stand out. Well, this one did, but unfortunately not in a good way. The blurb, as other reviewers have pointed out, was looking quite good, but doesn't fit the book at all.
I guess if you're into long Elizabethan ramblings about the devil and such things, this might be for you. Otherwise, I'm sure there are better books for you in this collection...
~Little Black Classics #30~
Read all my reviews on
I realize that in a collection of 80 (or 127) works, not everything can stand out. Well, this one did, but unfortunately not in a good way. The blurb, as other reviewers have pointed out, was looking quite good, but doesn't fit the book at all.
I guess if you're into long Elizabethan ramblings about the devil and such things, this might be for you. Otherwise, I'm sure there are better books for you in this collection...
~Little Black Classics #30~
October 13, 2017
I try to find something to interest me even in things that on the whole are a rather big yawn. Sometimes, this leads me to rate things unfairly, but in this case I reigned myself in. This is a definite 1/5, if for no other reason that it is presented under false pretenses.
Sure, it mentions quite often demons, the devil and all manner of spirits, albeit either in a very abstract sense, or using conscious hyperbole, crossing over into the psychology of dreams (the only interesting part) and then back to theological considerations, metaphors and what ifs within what ifs, within hearsays.
...and all that in non-Shakespearean Elizabethan English. If you don't appreciate the elegance and relative simplicity of Shakespeare, this book will make you, by being the exact opposite.
Sure, it mentions quite often demons, the devil and all manner of spirits, albeit either in a very abstract sense, or using conscious hyperbole, crossing over into the psychology of dreams (the only interesting part) and then back to theological considerations, metaphors and what ifs within what ifs, within hearsays.
...and all that in non-Shakespearean Elizabethan English. If you don't appreciate the elegance and relative simplicity of Shakespeare, this book will make you, by being the exact opposite.
August 12, 2020
Well. The Glossary in the begining wasn't much of help anyhow, It was mostly understandable, however.. There is no point to this prose? I felt like I was reading a mans notebook of quick synonyms he could use for a scary novel, but instead of publishing the novel, he just published the dictionary for it.
Awfully Boring,. how is this a Classic again?
Awfully Boring,. how is this a Classic again?
April 25, 2022
Judging by Nashe, revision was not a well known techne in Elizabethan England. So so so much flab. And yet also so much creativity and enthusiasm, which kept me fond despite myself.
CN: some period-mild but period-typical misogyny and anti-blackness
CN: some period-mild but period-typical misogyny and anti-blackness
June 5, 2019
Nope, didn鈥檛 enjoy this one. It鈥檚 basically Nashe writing about all of these weird mystical creatures that he believes in, only he somehow made it super boring. Oh well.
April 5, 2020
Not what I was expecting so this was a No for me. This story wasn't my thing and so I didn't enjoy it.
February 4, 2025
I liked this. The reviews don鈥檛 get it.
March 30, 2021
Quite possibly the most boring thing I have ever read.
October 10, 2019
This was so boring and dreary, there was none of the more horrific imaginings I wanted.
October 30, 2016
Well, this one wins the prize for most misleading description of the Little Black Classics range so far. Demonic horrors and spirits on the weekend of Halloween? I am ready to be scared. What followed instead was fifty pages of blather on the devil, demons, superstitions, and dreams.
Nashe bleats on for ages in robust lecture fashion. It reads like a stream of consciousness essay, which is never really effective. I imagine, in his time, this would be interesting, and perhaps even frightening; but the back of the book had so convinced me I'd be scared, that I was incredibly disappointed. The only scary thing about this is the thought of it being longer, or indeed having to read it again.
Did you know dreams are a culmination of our thoughts during the day, and anything that's stuck in the back of your mind? Did you know that the main cause of insomnia is a guilty conscience?Did you know that spirits are more likely to target women, as they are so so incredibly weak? Yeah, okay, that's an Elizabethan social thought of the 1500s, but the repetition of women's susceptibility to being haunted was incredibly tiresome.
A wordy, diverted ramble through what felt like Nashe's thought process on the supernatural. I once listened to a tired and drunken friend beat on about the philosophies of life for what felt like hours; had I given him a pen, I imagine his thoughts would read a lot like Nashe's essay.
I have been robbed of my presumed Elizabethan ghost stories.
Nashe bleats on for ages in robust lecture fashion. It reads like a stream of consciousness essay, which is never really effective. I imagine, in his time, this would be interesting, and perhaps even frightening; but the back of the book had so convinced me I'd be scared, that I was incredibly disappointed. The only scary thing about this is the thought of it being longer, or indeed having to read it again.
Did you know dreams are a culmination of our thoughts during the day, and anything that's stuck in the back of your mind? Did you know that the main cause of insomnia is a guilty conscience?Did you know that spirits are more likely to target women, as they are so so incredibly weak? Yeah, okay, that's an Elizabethan social thought of the 1500s, but the repetition of women's susceptibility to being haunted was incredibly tiresome.
A wordy, diverted ramble through what felt like Nashe's thought process on the supernatural. I once listened to a tired and drunken friend beat on about the philosophies of life for what felt like hours; had I given him a pen, I imagine his thoughts would read a lot like Nashe's essay.
I have been robbed of my presumed Elizabethan ghost stories.
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