This volume of selections from the writings of Sir Philip Sidney presents an unusually extensive sample of the work of this major Elizabethan writer. It includes the whole of his sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella, his efence of Poesy, his Certain Sonnets, substantial parts of both versions of the Arcadia, a selection of letters, a generous assemblage of supplementary texts that illustrate his inventiveness as a royal entertainer, and a discussion of the royal cult which grew up around him after his sudden death in 1586.