Samuel Daniel

This article discusses current research on the Elizabethan poet and historian Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) and looks at future archival and critical directions for work on him. It sets out details of Daniel’s life in Somerset and offers new evidence of his outlook as a man of letters and the income he made from writing. The connections between his work and that of Spenser, Jonson, and Shakespeare are considered, as is his relationship with elite patrons, including Sir Edward Dymoke, Lord Keeper Egerton, Baron Mountjoy, and Lady Anne Clifford. The article examines the considerable reputation Daniel had at court and at Oxford and closes with a discussion of his ideas about civilized life.