John Lyly

John Lyly (Lilly or Lylie; ; c. 1553 or 1554 – November 1606) was an English writer, poet, dramatist, and courtier, best known during his lifetime for his books Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) and Euphues and His England (1580), and perhaps best remembered now for his plays. Lyly's mannered literary style, originating in his first books, is known as euphuism. 2Biography John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554, to Peter Lyly (d. 1569) and his wife, Jane Burgh (or Brough), of Burgh Hall in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The first of eight children, he was probably born in Canterbury, where his father was the Registrar for the Archbishop Matthew Parker and where the births of his siblings are recorded between 1562 and 1568. His grandfather was William Lily, the grammarian. According to Anthony Wood, at the age of 16 Lyly became a student at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1573 and his master's two years later. In 1574 he applied to Lord Burghley for the Queen's letters to admit him as fellow at Magdalen College, but the fellowship was not granted, and Lyly subsequently left the university. He complains about a sentence of rustication apparently passed on him at some time, in his address to the gentlemen scholars of Oxford affixed to the second edition of the first part of Euphues, but nothing more is known about either its date or its caus