Mr. Henry R. Plomer says of the book in an interesting article on our printer: "The preliminary matter is printed in a very regular fount of Roman, the text in his ordinary fount of Black Letter, and the whole book is distinguished for its clear, regular, and clean appearance."
On July 24, 1579, the stationer Cawood entered for license a second part of Euphues, which he had promised at the end of this volume in the following words:
"I Haue finiſhed the firſt part of Euphues whome now I lefte readye to croſſe the Seas to Englande, if the winde send him a ſhorte cutte you ſhall in the ſeconde part heare what newes he bringeth and I hope to haue him retourned within one Summer...."
The book appeared the next year with the title: ¶Euphues and his England. | Containing | his voyages and adventures, myxed with | ſundry pretie diſcourſes of honeſt Loue ... ¶ By Iohn Lyly, Maiſter | of Arte. | Commend it, or amend it. | By Imprinted at London for Gabriell Cawood, dwelling in | Paules Church-yard. | 1580.
Edward Blount, the stationer, who published Shakespeare's folio works, tells us in a preface to Lyly's Sixe Court Comedies, which he collected and William Stansby printed in 1632, of the sensation Euphues created when it appeared. "Our Nation," he wrote, "are in his (i.e. Lyly's) debt, for a new Engliſh which hee taught them. Euphues and his England began firſt, that language: All our Ladies were then his Scollers; And that Beautie in court, which could not Parley Euphueiſme, was as little regarded, as ſhee which, now there, ſpeakes not French."
Quarto. Black letter and Roman. The fifth edition.
Collation: A-Z, in fours.