ABSTRACT
One of the ways in which Thomas Nashe fashions himself as an author draws upon the well-worn metaphor of textual reproduction: the printed book is the progeny of the author, whose authorial persona is embodied by their own works. Nashe refers to his own work, Pierce Penilesse, as a "paper monster" when describing how it was begotten. The absence of Sidney's work from print has left only the printed works of those Sidney himself condemns in his Defense of Poesy. In Sidney's absence, unworthy writers fill the literary market place like Hobgoblins with paper tails. During the sixty-seven years between the first publication of Raynalde's The Byrth of Mankynde and Guillemeau's work in English, substantial amounts of work had been printed on monsters, anatomical science, and also on midwifery. For an analysis of the tension between ink and print production in Nashe, see Mentz. Or perhaps, when it was printed, the text became a different kind of monster.
