n.
born 1567, Lowestoft, Suffolk, Eng.
died 0441; 1601, Yarmouth, Norfolk?
English pamphleteer, poet, dramatist, and novelist.
The first of the English prose eccentrics, Nashe wrote in a vigorous combination of colloquial diction and idiosyncratic coined compounds that was ideal for controversy. Among his works are the satire Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Divell (1592); the masque Summers Last Will and Testament (1592, published 1600); The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), the first picaresque novel in English; and Nashes Lenten Stuffe (1599). The play Dido, Queen of Carthage (1594) was a collaboration with Christopher Marlowe .