The History of the World

Abstract

Sir Walter Ralegh’s History of the World was published in 1614. It was a remarkable event. An imprisoned writer, indeed a legally dead writer, had found a way to make his voice heard, to remind the world of his existence, in the form of history, the genre which acts to preserve memory and which conveys political advice to leaders. The very publication of this history of the world, offered to the world for lack of a ‘maister’ (sig.E4v), should be seen as a political act, both in terms of Ralegh’s individual career and within the larger framework of cultural and political development.

‘Say to the Court it glowes, and shines like rotten wood’