In this essay, Schwyzer surveys the circumstances surrounding the composition and the publication history of The Unfortunate Traveller and Christs Tears over Jerusalem to explain how the two works could be the product of the same time in Nashe's career. The critic characterizes Nashe as an innovator whose deep belief in orthodoxy and the status quo gave him the freedom to experiment without fear of upsetting the order he believed was firmly entrenched.

In the following excerpt from his study of the development of the English novel, Jusserand offers an introduction to Nashe's life and his major prose work, The Unfortunate Traveller, arguing that it is an early example of the picaresque in English.

In this essay, Mentz discusses Nashe's use of generic models in The Unfortunate Traveller, particularly his adaptation of the romance. The critic suggests that Nashe pressed on the tensions within the romance genre, not so much for satirical effect but as a means of expanding the genre and exploring its potential.

In this essay, originally written in 1960 and reprinted in a posthumous collection of essays and stories, Berryman focuses on generic issues surrounding The Unfortunate Traveller and Nashe's strengths as a writer. The critic also discusses Nashe's public quarrel with Gabriel Harvey as providing instances of his best work.

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.

In the following essay, Lanham analyzes The Unfortunate Traveller as a fictional autobiography expressing both the character of Jack Wilton and the psychology of Nashe himself

In the following essay, Gohlke analyzes Nashe's use of the picaresque in The Unfortunate Traveller to resolve a conflict between rhetorical cleverness and the need for moral action in the novel's tone.

In the following essay, Bowers analyzes The Unfortunate Traveller as a picaresque work, concluding that while imperfect, it does, nonetheless, qualify as the first English picaresque novel.

In the following essay, Gibbons discusses Nashe's extensive use of polemical discourse in The Unfortunate Traveller, linking it to the rhetorical tradition of his day.

Below, Millard discusses the notion of the grotesque in Elizabethan literature and argues that Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller makes effective use of the grotesque as a structural and thematic center to the work.