Barnabe Barnes is one of the most important minor sonneteers to write during the reign of Elizabeth I. A member of the leisured rich, he moved easily in literary circles and managed to make friends and enemies among the most luminous courtiers and writers of his day. Although much of his biography is shrouded by the usual blankness typical of Renaissance authors, scholars have been able to piece together enough of his life to appreciate him as a fascinating, if brash, figure in Shakespeare's England. Most of his works have evaded oblivion, but the first edition of his most famous first collection of poems exists in only a single copy. Had that not survived, readers would be tantalized today by various satirical references to his secular poetry without means to substantiate the contemporary criticism. Far below the status of Edmund Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney, Barnes holds his...