William Painter The Palace of Pleasure
This is a very important book
Painter was Clerk of the Ordinance at the Tower of London where his boss (as master of the ordinance) was Ambrose Dudley (There is a portrait in the house. Ambrose was elder brother of Robert Dudley – Queen Elizabeth’s favourite). The Palace of Pleasure was dedicated to him.

Painter’s position made him very rich (he had two manors in Kent) but eventually was accused of embezzlement and fraudulent accounting. Nevertheless, he was allowed to keep his position although he did have to repay some of the money.

The book consists of just over 100 short stories. They were based on earlier Classical and medieval stories: Ancient writers such as Herodotus, Tacitus and Plutarch but also more ‘modern’ authors from the Fourteenth century such as Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) and Cinthio Giraldi (1504-73). We have books by these in the library too.

The reason this book was so important is that it was a source book for later authors such as Shakespeare. Here lay the origin of Romances like Romeo and Juliet, All’s Well that Ends Well, The Duchess of Malfi.