Writing Sidney

Abstract The unfinished nature of Sidney’s work as published after his death left the door open for a number of continuators and imitators. This was particularly true of the Arcadia, where the ‘composite’ 1593 edition created an obvious gap between the New Arcadia and the last two books added from the Old. This gap was filled by short ‘supplements’ written by William Alexander and James Johnstoun, while the story as a whole was continued in a Sixth Booke by Richard Belling, the English Arcadia by Gervase Markham, A Continuation of Philip Sydney’s Arcadia by Anna Weamys, and a manuscript Historie of Arcadia that adapted it to a post-Civil War context. This chapter examines how such continuations constructed a relationship with Sidney’s authorship and responded to his memory, as well as how the Arcadia continued to be written ‘with’ into the eighteenth century and beyond.