Willobie His Avisa is a narrative poem that was published as a pamphlet in London after being entered in the Stationers' Register on 3 September 1594. It purports to have been written by a person called "Henry Willobie" with an introduction by "Hadrian Dorrell". It is possible that these are pseudonyms, though a real Henry Willobie certainly existed. The central story tells of Avisa, who is at first a maid and then an innkeeper's wife. She is besieged by a series of would-be seducers, one after the other. She rebuffs each of them and remains a chaste and a constant wife. It is told in seventy-two cantos, the cantos being made up of six-line stanzas of iambic tetrameters, which rhyme ababcc. The pedestrian quality of poem has left critics unimpressed, and it was censured by the authorities in 1599. The work is enigmatic regarding the actual identities of its characters and its author, but its popularity suggests that Tudor audiences knew what was being said. It was republished six times between 1594 and 1635. Willobie His Avisa is of particular interest to Shakespearean studies, because it contains literature's first extant, independent mention of William Shakespeare. This occurs in an introductory poem printed in the first pages. Also, one of the characters, "W.S.", is widely thought to be based on William Shakespeare. W.S. is presented as a friend to "H.W." (Henry Willobie), and offers him advice on wooing Avisa. Source: Wikipedia (en)