History of John Winchomb, Usually Called Jack of Newbury

This early novel, a collection of biographical tales about a nonfictional individual, a clothier, provides a rare glimpse of daily life in an industry during the early years of King Henry VIII's reign. The author's ingenuous style, occasionally addressing the reader directly in the second person, creates the atmosphere of an informal exchange of tales around a cracker barrel. Many of the tales have explicit morals, for Jack is a businessman with a heart of gold, the very opposite of the unreform