Diana of George of Montemayor:

London: Edm. Bollifant. 1598.

First edition in English. 269x190mm. pp. [8], 496. Collates: a⁴A-2R⁶ 2S⁸. Full calf, double fillet borders to upper and lower covers. Spine with five raised bands, compartments decorated in blind and gilt and lettered in gilt. Tear to title page at gutter and there is some browning and foxing and two small holes in Cc6, Ee6, with loss of two letters in each case. But otherwise a very good copy of the first appearance in English of this influential work which combines the pastoral obsessions of the Renaissance with an early form of novelistic prose. In the margin of the title page is the near contemporary ownership inscription "Robert Ledwich his book".
First published in Portuguese in 1559, it was an instant success, especially in neighbouring Spain where two sequels were published in 1564. Yong's English translation includes both. Diana represents a genre that is perhaps hard to define precisely but which one critic has described as "a succession of natural description, narrative, verse, and love stories". The work transcends the conventions of classical pastoral and in doing so, marks a new literary path, one that would lead towards the eighteenth century novel. Diana was widely read across Europe and among its readers was Shakespeare who drew on it for The Two Gentleman of Verona although, of course, pastoral romances such as Diana and Il Pastor Fido lie behind so many of the comedies and the Green World plays.