The Unfortunate Traveller

The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton by Thomas Nashe (1594) is a picaresque novel set during the reign of Henry VIII of England.

The narrator, Jack Wilton, describes his adventures as a page during the wars against the French, and his subsequent travels in Italy as page to the Earl of Surrey. In his travels, Jack witnesses numerous atrocities, including battlefields, plague, and rape: at one point he is nearly hanged, and at another, he is on the point of being cut up in a live anatomy demonstration. Jack's narrative climaxes by describing the brutal revenge taken by one Italian on another, who forces him to pray to the devil and then shoots him in the throat: Jack himself escapes and returns to England.

In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Wilton has become the M of the late 17th century, leading Prospero's Men.

External liks

• The Unfortunate Traveller at Project Gutenberg, editied by Edmund Gosse, 1892
• The Unfortunate Traveller at the Internet Archive, edited by H.F.B. Brett-Smith, 1920
• The Unfortunate Traveller at theOxford Authorship Site, edited by Nina Green (modern spelling), 2002