Thomas Lodge remains, nearly four centuries after his death, an ill-defined figure among many illustrious Elizabethans. Although a good deal is known about his multifaceted life, as a literary personality he continues to be a "minor Elizabethan." But his output was more varied and more copious than that of most of his contemporaries. He outlived most of the writers of his generation. His lifetime spans exactly the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and for almost thirty years after his career as an Elizabethan author ended, he practiced his other vocation, medicine. He was the son of a lord mayor of London who disinherited him. He was an Oxford graduate and a member of Lincoln's Inn who also knew a debtors' prison from the inside. He was a devout Catholic who suffered exile for his faith. He was an adventurer who went on at least two voyages, one of...