In 1588, two years after Sidney's death, Fulke Greville appears to have appealed to Francis Walsingham to prevent an unauthorized publication of parts of the original, as we learn from a letter that also serves as evidence for the circulation of Arcadia in manuscript form:Sir this day one Ponsonby a bookbinder in Paul's Churchyard, came to me, and told me that there was one in hand to print, Sir Philip Sidney's old Arcadia asking me if it were done with your honour's consent or any other of his friends/ I told him to my knowledge no, then he advised me to give warning of it, either to the Archbishop or Doctor Cosen, who have as he says a copy of it to peruse to that end/ Sir I am loath to renew his memory unto you, but yet in this I must presume, for I have sent my Lady your daughter at her request, a correction of that old one done 4 or 5 years since which he left in trust with me whereof there is no more copies, and fitter to be printed than that first which is so common, notwithstanding even that to be amended by a direction set down under his own hand how and why, so as in many respects especially the care of printing it is to be done with more deliberation,[1]Sidney's original version was all but forgotten until 1907,[2] when the antiquarian Bertram Dobell discovered that a manuscript of the Arcadia he had purchased differed from published editions.

A highly idealized version of the shepherd's life adjoins, on the other hand and not always naturally (in its literary sense), stories of jousts, political treachery, kidnappings, battles, and rapes.

The hybrid editions did not efface the difference between the highly artificial, hellenized revised portion and the straightforward conclusion Sidney wrote originally.

Although Old Arcadia has never been greatly popular, it has entertained a small set of readers for over 400 years with its sensational treatment of sex, politics, violence, soporifics, mobs, and cross-dressing.

Narrated in sprawling Renaissance prose, the romance comprises five "books or acts," organized according to the five-part structure of classical dramaturgy: exposition, action, complication, reversal, catastrophe.

In Book I, the Duke of Arcadia, Basilius, journeys to the oracle at Delphos and receives a bleak prediction: his daughters will be stolen by undesirable suitors, he will be cuckolded by his wife, and his throne will be usurped by a foreign state.

In a nearby city, Pyrocles and Musidorus pass the night; they are cousins, princes, and best friends, and are famous throughout Greece for their heroic exploits.

To that end, Pyrocles disguises himself as Cleophila, an "[Amazonian lady] going about the world to practice feats of chivalry," and heads for Basilius's pastoral lodge, accompanied by the skeptical but loyal Musidorus.

While Musidorus covertly observes this meeting, he is overwhelmed by a passionate love for the elder daughter, Pamela, and decides to disguise himself as a shepherd, Dorus, in order to gain access to her.

In an extremely complicated piece of hoodwinking, Dorus reveals his identity to Pamela, proposes elopement, and is elated by the princess's willingness to flee Arcadia with him.

Hoping for a reward for finding the fugitives, the mob heads for Basilius, but is intercepted and slaughtered by Philanax and his men, who take the captive Dorus and Pamela, who are now primary suspects in the duke's murder.

Philanax struggles to maintain order in Arcadia, which is dangerously divided: some factions support various political climbers, others clamor for democratic government, and some call for the election of the two princes, whose good looks and military prowess had made them very popular.

Luckily, the sovereign most renowned for his wise and just government, Euarchus of Thessalia, has traveled to Arcadia to visit his good friend Basilius.

Gynecia, "Palladius" and "Timopyrus" are brought forth to stand before Euarchus, who presides as judge, and Philanax, who argues on behalf of the apparently murdered Basilius.

At this moment of recognition, or anagnorisis, Euarchus is devastated, but decides that justice trumps kinship, and with a heavy heart confirms their death sentence.

All are forgiven, the princes marry the princesses, and the book thus ends with a comic reversal, or peripeteia, from justice and death to reconciliation and marriage.

Sidney's book inspired a number of partial imitators, such as his niece Lady Mary Wroth's Urania, and continuations, the most famous perhaps being that by Anna Weamys.

William Shakespeare borrowed from Arcadia for the Gloucester subplot of King Lear;[3] traces of the work's influence may also be found in Hamlet[4] and The Winter's Tale.

By the beginning of the Romantic era, the grand, artificial, sometimes obstinately unwieldy style of Sidney's Arcadia had made it thoroughly alien to more modern tastes.

Edmund Gosse in the EB1911 writes, "This severe censure of Euphuism may serve to remind us that hasty critics have committed an error in supposing the Arcadia of Sidney to be composed in the fashionable jargon.

In 2013, the Old Arcadia was adapted for the stage by The University of East Anglia's Drama Department, and performed alongside Shakespeare's As You Like It as part of "The Arcadian Project".