Sir Walter Ralegh created a powerful public identity by means of the prose texts he wrote from prison. This new study not only offers a much-needed analysis of these neglected political writings, but also demonstrates the ways in which his readers modified Ralegh's public identity in a series of fascinating posthumous reinterpretations. By focusing on both Ralegh and his interpreters, this book contributes to the growing body of work on the politics and practice of writing and reading in early-modern England.

Sir Walter Raleigh created a powerful public identity in the prose texts he wrote from prison. Anna Beer's new study offers a much-needed analysis of these neglected political writings which include The History of the World, A Dialog between a Counsellor and a Justice of the Peace, and Raleigh's speech from the scaffold. Moving beyond previous analyses which have understood these works primarily in terms of patronage relationships, Beer argues that Raleigh's experience of imprisonment encouraged him to seek new audiences outside the court and to explore political stances which confronted the power of the monarch. Later chapters chart the ways in which readers modified Raleigh's public identity over the course of the century, reforming his work to serve a range of political agendas, indeed using his voice to speak for a new notion of the people. By focusing on both Raleigh and his interpreters, this book contributes to the growing body of work on the politics and practices of writing and reading in early-modern England.

This thesis attempts to look at the life and works of Sir Walter Ralegh and his readership in the seventeenth century. Specifically, this study will look at Raleghâs History of the World and its influence on two men, Oliver Cromwell and James Graham, Marquis of Montrose. While having dissimilar backgrounds, both found Raleghâs History, to be a favorite book. This study will look at the impact this work may have had on the lives of these two men through their letters and public lives. Necessarily this study will look mainly at the primary sources of these men including the letters and speeches of Cromwell as compiled by Thomas Carlyle and the Memoirs of Montrose, compiled and edited by Mark Napier. Obviously Raleghâs History of the World will also be a significant part of my research. There are some secondary sources that deal with this matter, specifically Anna Beerâs Sir Walter Ralegh and his Readers in the Seventeenth Century: Speaking to the People. Although Beer and others mention Cromwellâs fascination with Ralegh in passing, they leave out Montrose and delve no further into the impact the History had on these men. This study concludes that Sir Walter Raleghâs History did have an emphatic impact on the lives of both Cromwell, and Montrose, who took strikingly different paths in life. Raleghâs magnum opus impacted both these important figures in ways hitherto unstudied by scholars.

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This book contains the first comprehensive account of writing by women from the mid sixteenth century through to 1700. At the same time, it traces the way a representative sample of that writing was published, circulated in manuscript, read, anthologised, reprinted, and discussed from the time it was produced through to the present day. Salzman's study covers an enormous range of women from all areas of early modern society, and it covers examples of the many and varied genres produced by these women, from plays to prophecies, diaries to poems, autobiographies to philosophy. As well as introducing readers to the wealth of material produced by women in the early modern period, this book examines changing responses to what was written, tracing a history of reception and transmission that amounts to a cultural history of changing taste.

The Broadview Anthology of Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose makes available not only extensive selections from the works of canonical writers, but also substantial extracts from writers who have either been neglected in earlier anthologies or only relatively recently come to the attention of twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholars and teachers. Popular fiction and prose nonfiction are especially well represented, including selections from popular romances, merchant fiction, sensation pamphlets, sermons, and ballads. The texts are extensively annotated, with notes both explaining unfamiliar words and providing cultural and historical contexts.