ABSTRACT
John Eliot’s Ortho-epia Gallica: Eliot’s Fruits for the French: Interlaced with aDouble New Invention, which Teacheth to Speak Truly, Speedily and Volubly the French-Tongue (1593) is a work that demonstrates the sensitivity of the Elizabethan book trade to public demand. It is a French phrase book and phonetic pronunciation guide that responds both to the fashionable prose and cultural posturing of the Elizabethan prodigals and to the new and expanding appetite for news from France. The prefaces, to French tutors and gentlemen readers and students, are written in the hyperbolic style of Thomas Nashe and Robert Greene. The dialogues through which readers are instructed (much like a modern study guide) reflect perceptions of typical contemporary conversations in London and Paris. One located at ‘La Bourse’ begins with five ways of asking for news: ‘What newes in Fraunce? . . . What bruit in the world? . . . Know you no newes? What say they from Barbarie, Italie, from Spaine, and Turkie? Is there no good newes?’2
