SOURCE: Ringler, William A., Jr. “Beware the Cat and the Beginnings of English Fiction.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 12, no. 2 (winter 1979): 113-26.

In the following essay, Ringler offers an account of Beware the Cat, places the novel in the larger context of the history of English prose fiction through 1558, and comments on the excellence of Baldwin's handling of point of view, action, characterization, and style.

The English novel was born the evening of December 28th, 1552. This is a fact of literary history that does not appear in any history of the novel. It is a fictional date, but the fiction is enmeshed with verifiable fact. On that evening George Ferrers, Master of the King's Pastimes, William Baldwin, playwright and printer, Gregory Streamer, and Master Willot were together in Ferrers' chamber at the Court of the boy king Edward VI. The first two men were well known in their...