ABSTRACT
The underworld literature which developed in England between the 1550s and the 1620s is usually treated as a homogeneous corpus of texts (the so-called 'literature of roguery') both in critical studies and in anthologies. Geremek rightly remarks that what is entirely different is the social rank of the two kinds of phenomena described and adds that, while in the case of vagrants and beggars the group is sociologically homogeneous and identifiable, in the case of conny-catchers their social composition is not easy to define. Another generally although uncritically accepted view is that both the rogue pamphlets and the conny-catching pamphlets are connected with the picaresque novel. If we consider the Italian and German pamphlets, there is no doubt that the rogue narratives were the first specimens of that specific form of underworld literature produced in Europe; but also the more distinctly English tradition of the conny-catching pamphlets preceded the first Spanish picaresque novel.
