Theophania, one of a handful of English political romances surviving from the seventeenth century, is a fascinating example of a contemporary literary fashion for mingling history with fiction. Loosely adapting Sir Philip Sidney’s prose romance, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, Theophania’s anonymous author uses the popular genre of romance in order to explore the political and personal conflicts which led to England’s civil war, presenting a fictionalized  account of the war’s origins reaching back to the days of Queen Elizabeth I and her favorite, the earl of Essex. Central characters appearing in fictional guise include the future Charles II, Prince William of Orange, and Robert Devereux, third earl of Essex, lord general of the Parliamentary Army. The author employs romance conventions such as shipwrecks and separated lovers suffering parental opposition to embellish his often penetrating account of the crisis facing England in the 1640s.

The Editor

Renée Pigeon is Associate Professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino. She has published articles on Sidney, Shakespeare and Elizabeth I. In addition to English Renaissance prose fiction, her research interests include film and detective fiction.