"...one of the more exciting of recent books on Spenser; and, remarkably, for such a stylish study, it is a model of argumentative and stylistic lucidity." P. Cullen, Choice

"Spenser's Secret Career is an excellent test case for the value of 'narrow' literary biography--that is, a work that accounts for a writer's career in terms of a single theme or preoccupation....Rambuss is a good close reader and a perceptive analyst of cultural context....we should welcome this book...for the distinctive illumination it provides." Sixteenth-Century Journal

"Rambuss's study enhances the critical repertoire by providing a well-written and often rewarding introduction to its subject. His analysis also provides further evidence that Spenser's command of poetic means of secrecy empowers his texts to depart from political orthodoxies....Rambuss's study clarifies some broader difficulties current in much New Historicism." Kenneth Boris, Dalhousie Review

"...an elegant and painstaking reading...one of the most well-constructed readings of its kind..." Nigel Smith, Times Literary Supplement