Sir Walter Raleigh

A sketch of the life of Raleigh will be found prefixed to his “Discovery of Guiana” in the volume of “Voyages and Travels.” His “History of the World” was written during his imprisonment in the Tower of London, which lasted from 1603 to 1616. The Preface is interesting not only as a fine piece of Elizabethan prose, but as exhibiting the attitude toward history, and the view of the relation of history to religion and philosophy, which characterized one who represented with exceptional vigor the typical Elizabethan man of action and who was also a man of thought and imagination.

Preface to the History of the World