An Introduction to Two Female-Oriented Popular Romances of the Early 1660s: S.C.’s Cleocreton and Cloryana and J.P.’s Floridon and Lucina

Abstract

This article introduces two neglected popular romances indirectly addressed to (young) female readers in the early 1660s, as much as The History of the Seven Wise Mistresses of Rome (1663) also was. The undated chivalric romance Cleocreton and Cloryana (ca.1661) was apparently written by a woman who concealed her identity under the initials S.C., while J.P.’s non-chivalric history of Floridon and Lucina (1663) was inspired by the ballad “Loves Paradice,” also by J.P., who was probably related to the ballad-monger Martin Parker. The first section surveys scholarly approaches that may help contextualise mid-seventeenth-century popular romances and chapbooks, as well as female readers of this kind of publication, despite the lack of certainty in these matters. The next two sections concentrate on the romances. Analysis of Cleocreton considers the publication year, authorship, genre, and gender issues. The discussion of Floridon takes into account aspects as different as authorship, female agency, and race. This article ultimately proposes to pinpoint a significant group of popular prose-fiction acceptable for (young) female readers in a period when literacy and the book business were expanding, and the romance still bore the stigma of pernicious literature.