The Second Part of the Booke of Battailes,

major source for George Peele's The Battle of Alcazar

The first edition of this continuation by John Polemon to his All the Famous Battels published in c.1578.

The Second Part comprises twelve new narratives of military engagements fought between 1562 (Dreux) and 1585 (the fall of Antwerp i.e. 'Couwenstein dike'), and which all took place on the continent with the exception of Langside in 1568. 'All the descriptions, except the last, are from foreign sources, and the name of its original author [which include Popellinière, Stratius, Contarini, Comes and others] is prefixed to the account of every battle' (Cockle).

The text is today best-known as the main source for George Peele's (c.1556-1596) play The Battle of Alcazar, based on the account of the conflict here 'Taken out of a namelesse Portugall auctor, [and] translated into Latin by Thomas Freigins' (f.63r). The play, first printed in 1594, contains the first major treatment of a Moorish character on the Elizabethan stage and is an important precursor to Shakespeare's Othello.

Polemon's name is not given anywhere in this continuation, but implied from the preface which laments that his earlier work was so 'maimed, mangled, and marred by the Printer... that I like a passionate mother, that had her faire childe foulie deformed through the negligence or mallice of a lewde Nurse, in a manner forsware mine owne child, bidding the Printer take it to himselfe, and father it on whom he list, so he gaue it not mine owne, but account it a changeling'.

Like its predecessor, the present work is scarce with ESTC recording only 13 copies in institutional collections: 5 in the British Isles (BL, Cambridge University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Bodleian Library, and Peterborough Cathedral Library) and 7 in North America (Boston Public Library, 2 copies at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Huntington Library, Houghton Library, Newberry Library, and Yale University).

First edition; 4to (18.5 x 13.5 cm); title within woodcut border, woodcut initials, head and tailpieces, occasional underlining, MS marginal annotations in an early hand to F1r, K1v, K2v, L1v, U2v, U3r, and 2C1r, ownership stamp to recto of A3, trimmed close at upper-margin with occasional loss to headline, light dampstaining throughout, final few ff a little frayed at edges, small wormhole affecting a few letters to 2C2; modern panelled calf, spine lettered in gilt, a little rubbed at extremities, very good; [4], 94ff.

ESTC S114774; STC 20090; Cockle 34.