The Honourable Historie of Frier Bacon

Greene, Robert Born July 1558, in Norwich; died Sept. 3, 1592, in London. English author and playwright. The first of Greene’s plays that has been preserved is The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus King of Aragon (c. 1588). Greene and T. Lodge wrote the satirical comedies A Looking Glasse for London and Englande (1590) and The Historie of Orlando Furioso (1591). Greene’s most famous plays are The Honourable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay (1589) and The Scottish Historie of King James IV (1591, published 1598), which combine a theme of love and adventure with a comical plot. He was the author of pamphlets and the pastoral novels Pandosto (1598) and Menaphon (1589). Shakespeare used the plot of Pandosto in A Winter’s Tale. Greene was probably the author of the anonymous A Pleasant Comedy of George Green, the Wakefield Guard (1599), which glorified a peasant who helped the king suppress a feudal revolt.