This collection of essays by scholars from Great Britain, the United States, Canada and Taiwan covers a wide range of topics about Ralegh's diversified career and achievements. Some of the essays shed light on less familiar facets such as Ralegh as a father and as he is represented in paintings, statues, and in movies; others re-examine him as poet, historian, as a controversial figure in Ireland during Elizabeth's reign, and look at his complex relationship with and patronage of Edmund Spenser. A recurrent topic is the Hatfield Manuscript in Ralegh's handwriting, which contains his long, unfinished poem 'The Ocean to Cynthia', usually considered a lament about his rejection by Queen Elizabeth after she learned of his secret marriage to one of her ladies-in-waiting.

The book is appropriate for students of Elizabethan-Jacobean history and literature.

Among the contributors are well-known scholars of Ralegh and his era, including James Nohrenberg, Anna Beer, Thomas Herron, Alden Vaughan and Andrew Hiscock.

Reviews

Professor Armitage presents an admirable bibliography (1986-2010) of Ralegh's works. This is a real asset and will certainly advance Ralegh scholarship.

Introduction: Of letters and the man: Sir Walter Ralegh - Christopher M. Armitage, Thomas Herron and Julian Lethbridge
1. Ralegh in ruins, Ralegh on the rocks: Sir Wa'ter's two books of mutabilitie and their subject's allegorical presence in select Spenserean narratives and complaints - James Nohrnberg
2. Spenser and Ralegh: friendship and literary patronage - Wayne Erickson
3. Love's 'emperye': Ralegh's 'Ocean to Scinthia', Spenser's 'Colin Clouts Come Home Againe' and The Faerie Queene IV.vii in colonial context - Thomas Herron
4. 'Bellphebes course is now observde no more': Ralegh, Spenser and the literary politics of Cynthia holograph - Anna Beer
5. Replying to Ralegh's "The Nymph's Reply": allusion, anti-pastoral, and four centuries of pastoral invitations - Hannibal Hamlin
6. "Moving on the Waters": metaphor and mental space in Ralegh's History of the World - Michael Booth
7. Water Ralegh's liquid narrative: The Discoverie of Guiana - Lowell Duckert
8. Ralegh, Harriot, and Anglo-American ethnography - Alden T. Vaughan
9. 'most fond and fruitlesse warre': Ralegh and the call to arms - Andrew Hiscock
10. Ralegh's "As You Came from the Holy Land" and the rival virgin queens of late sixteenth-century England - Gary Waller
11. Patrilineal Ralegh - Judith Owens
12. Ralegh's image in art - Dr. Vivienne Westbrook
13. Where's Walter? The screen incarnations of Sir Walter Ralegh - Susan Anderson
Sir Walter Ralegh bibliography (1986-2010) - Christopher M. Armitage
Index

Editor

Christopher M. Armitage is Professor of Distinguished Teaching in the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill