Walter Ralegh, of course, was an exceedingly complex and talented man; among other duties, he was a soldier, a sailor, and one of the finest poets of his time. From his military exploits in Ireland in the 1580s, after which marked his rise to favor at court, to his period of disgrace (due to his marraige to Elizabeth Throckmorton) in the 1590s, the life of Ralegh is defined by ambition and privelidge, and the struggle to maintain a strong position at court amidst an often hostile constituency.

"The Letters of Walter Ralegh" provides penetrating insights into his personal life. In these letters, one is also reminded of Ralegh's masterful skills as a writer. Ralegh's letters refect both his private and public struggles, and should be considered essential reading for anyone who wishes to learn more about this dynamic man who experienced the heights of success and misfortune. The book's editor, Anges Latham, is a world renowned schoilar on Ralegh, and her work in this edition is again stellar. I highly recommend this book.

Sir Walter Ralegh (the way he spelled it) was so much more than a promoter of tobacco--although he certainly did promote tobacco. He was so much more than a man who lay down his cloak so Queen Elizabeth I would not get her feet wet--a story which may or may not be true. He was a man from a poor background who rose almost as high as one could in Elizabethan England--and then fell about as low. Stunningly researched, brilliantly written, full of fascinating facts (did you know there were no maps of England that showed ROADS until the 1590s), this is young adult writing at its finest.

Everyone knows Sir Walter Ralegh as the gallant courtier who spread his cloak across a puddle so that his queen might pass dry-shod. A commoner who never lost his thick Cornish accent, Ralegh was nevertheless precisely the sort of man likely to catch Elizabeth's eye: handsome, intelligent, witty, well-spoken, and possessed of enough pride and independence to speak his mind, even to his queen. The term "Renaissance man" seems coined with Ralegh in mind: He was a poet, soldier, privateer, explorer, scientist, historian.

He could also be stunningly naive, and surprisingly inept at the art of courting favor. His first meeting with James I, Elizabeth's successor, was a disaster. Accustomed to priviledge, Ralegh approached James unannounced, even though the king heartily disliked such surprises. When James observed that he might have had to fight for the throne, Ralegh's response was, "Would to God you had! Then Your Majestry would have known your friends from your foes." An honest sentiment and possibly a shrewd one, it not the sort of observation likely to endear him to the new king. James already had reason to be wary of Ralegh, for some of Ralegh's enemies had been plying James for months with negative reports. Ralegh's recent behavior seemed to support these dark hints: he was one of the few dignitaries who did not bother to contact James after Elizabeth's death to assure the new sovereign of his loyalty. Worse, Ralegh presented the peace-loving king with a proposal for seizing the West Indies from Spain. James had been told that Ralegh was a warmonger and possibly a traitor. With his own eyes he perceived another, more subtle threat: this handsome, powerful, and persuasive man was a living reminder of Elizabethan glories.

Ralegh's fall from power during the reign of James I was as swift and spectacular as his rise under Elizabeth had been. His enemies rejoiced, as did the common folk who then and now love to see the mighty brought low. Ralegh's greatest triumph, perhaps, was the courage and wit he exhibited through his trial, imprisonment, and execution. In a last interview with a friend, he advised him to come to the beheading early if he wished to get a place. "As for me, my place is assured," he quipped. His last words, spoken to the hesitant executioner, were, "What dost fear? Strike, man, strike!"

Margaret Irwin is a novelist as well as a historian, and this comes through in the tone and quality of her writing. This biography is far more entertaining than most fictorical fiction I've read. It's full of telling anecdotes, vivid descriptions, and dead-on characterizations. Considering the complexity of her subjects and the paradoxical nature of Ralegh himself, this is a remarkable achievement.

One minor disappointment was the lack of a bioliography; there were several incidents and anecdotes that I would have liked to explore in more depth. Even so, it's an entertaining story, as well as a window into a fascinating time.

I had always loved Ralegh's poetry, I fell enamored of the fictional account of his life entitled "Death of a Fox" by George Garrett some 30 odd years ago, but had never really comprehended the sweep of Ralegh's life. In his own way, according to Lacey, Ralegh's household became almost the equivalent of our Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Draper Labs, or even NASA. The story about the cloak and Elizabeth is true, but the depth of his love for his wife was new to me.

Fascinating, well-written book. Truly fascinating man.

Like his later compatriate Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Walter Ralegh is one of those historical figures about whom virtually everyone knows something. From the old yarn about cloaks and puddles (though this actually happened), to his sponsorship of the tobacco industry (this happened too), to his tragic expedition to the Orinoco, Ralegh lore is a recurring theme in school history classes on both sides of the Atlantic. Lacey's great achievement is to blend these facets of his life seamlessly with the other, less familiar, episodes. One of the most interesting revelations is that for all the early and mid-life glories of his Elizabethan years - the poetry, the daring exploits and bon mots - his "finest hour" was in adversity, when (under sentence of death in the Tower) he wrote his brilliant multi-volume "History of the World." This is one of those rare biographies (Carlo D'Este's "Patton" comes to mind as another) where the reader is completely absorbed into the subject's mind and world.

To write a biography of a man with as much vitality and variety as Ralegh would seem at first sight a daunting task for any author: however well the tale is told, it will pale beside the real life exploits of this, the most remarkable of Englishmen.

The success of Robert Lacey's account is largely due to the way he reflects the multifaceted nature of his subject in the book's structure. There are some 50 chapters, divided into seven sections, each charting the ups and downs of Ralegh's uniquely chequered career. From country upstart to royal favourite, from privateer to traitor in the Tower, his life was never still - a continuum of change within a world that was constantly reassessing itself.

It is above all an account of a man who was almost uniquely human: capable of immense bravery and ingenuity, creativity and arrogance, one moment acquitting himself with a rare brilliance, the next with sublime recklessness. Ralegh was the epitome of man, warts and all, and a man who struggled daily to achieve ends that were destined to lie forever beyond him, whether they were glories of the gold of El Dorado or the love of his virgin Queen.

Far from being a trip down the honeysuckled lane of nostalgia, this is a book that is uniquely relevant to the present day. Many readers will be aware of the legends of Ralegh's bejewelled cloak, or acquainted with verses of his gilded poetry; many more will be surprised to learn that he was the founding father of the British colony, and that his experiments in Munster, Virginia and Guyana led directly to the vast empire that was only a couple of centuries later to cover one third of the globe. Yet he was in his explorations and expeditions a great philanthropist, and his treatment of the local inhabitants in the Americas was to earn him a respect that lasted many generations, as opposed to the legacy of mistrust and hatred that the Spanish pioneers engendered.

Ralegh was a man whose talents and faults, when fuelled by his rare energy, shone like beacons. He lived the kind of life that most of us only dream of, and few can live up to. Lacey's greatest achievement is never to lapse into the kind of starry-eyed hero-worshipping that often accompanies biographies of remarkable men. It is a profoundly moving book, particularly in its final chapters, when the voice of Ralegh in his final speech before his execution is allowed to resonate down the years with few embellishments and, as such, is all the more powerful. The book is a testament to the unique powers of one man: the man, to the powers that lie within us all.

this isnt the best versoin of cinderella i've heard!
but it is all i could find for a school project
if there was any good pictures from the book that i could have down loaded it would get 5 stars

the Book was good but i do wish they showed the picuter of the second ball whith cinderella in her gown

Cinderella lived with her two step-sisters. They gave her the nickname Cinderseat. They were really mean to her and made her do things for them. The king's son was to give a ball and everyone was invited. When the day came Cinderella began to cry and her godmother appeared and made her get a pumpkin, which she turned into a coach. She then turned mice into horses, and a rat into a coachman. Then dressed her in a beautiful dress and glass slippers. When she arrived she danced with the prince, but she had to leave before midnight. She left without telling anyone her name or anything. The next night they went to another ball and she left right before midnight in rags, and left one glass slipper behind. He checked around trying the slipper on everyone. When Cinderella tried it on it fit her perfectly, and the prince realized she was the mysterious girl he had danced with before and they were to be married. I think this is a good story for kids to read, because Cinderella was really nice to her step-sisters who were always so mean to her after everything.

Alan Wall has transformed his obvious reverence for Shakespeare and his equally obvious obsession with the "authorial question"--which fascinates legions of the plays' devotees and elicits weary yawns from the rest, who believe the matter prima facie beyond question--into a quirkily absorbing detective story. Indeed, with a bit of clever marketing, The School of Night might give Shakespeare's doubters, or at least enthusiasts of Marlovian authorship, the same kind of rhetorical boost Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time gave to the Ricardians (who maintain crookback Richard III was really all sweetness and light and view Shakespeare's play as based wholly on Tudor propaganda and misinformation).

Wall is a subtle writer who moves adeptly, and with economic efficiency, in simultaneously odd, interesting, learned, and tidily interreleated directions. This is literary writing, filled with symbology, scholarly allusion, and deft metaphor, but all in the most unobtrusive and graceful manner. Moreover, books of this sort must be in good part tutorial, and Wall has done his homework. At appropriate moments, he feeds us the essential elements of the authorial controversy, introduces the various contenders to the throne, and ultimately settles on Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's great contemporary, as the alter-Bard. The novel then unfolds as narrator Sean Tallow seeks to decipher the secret of "The School of Night," which is at once an obscure reference from the early comedy Love's Labour Lost and, perhaps, a secret society to which Marlowe may have belonged.

Principal characters are closely observed and artfully developed. Bibliomaniacs of all stripes will recognize and root for the introspective antiquarian Sean Tallow and his quest, but the parallel story of Tallow's relationship to a boyhood friend and his increasingly complex--and shady--life does more than allow Wall to space out his revelations. Both stories move in surprising directions, interact nicely, and wend their ways to what I found to be a satisfying conclusion. Moreover, it is a conclusion, even a moral, that I surmise the Bard--whoever he was--would wholeheartedly endorse.

In short, a very rich, very entertaining, very instructive novel, filled with character, imagery, insight, and narrative tension--not exactly sound and fury, but certainly signifying at the very least an exciting writer whose books I'll eagerly search out.

It's amazing that a book as light as this in pages can cover so much. Wall's writing is truly skillful. I thought when picking it up that it would be almost a 'Masterpiece Theater' costume drama. Instead,I found that narrator Sean Tallow's diving into the past into the question of Shakepeare's authorship and the mysteries regarding the School of Night to be subordinate to Sean's present-day activities and state of mind. Sean is haunted on two levels; one with his family life consisting of thief dad and dead mother, and his own un-self-confident and introverted nature, and secondly about the theme of whether Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare.

The funny thing about the present-day is it is so timeless in this book; the book has very few material accoutrements and I found myself going for pages wondering what year the book was really reflecting (there are but few clues - fleeting references to AIDs, blue plastic, and mobile phones finally narrowed it down). So much is about thought and perceptions and themes that are ageless - idolatry, betrayal, love, and especially knowledge pursuit. Sean pretty much covers what this book is all about when he says "...I was glad that I never learnt to drive, no longer embarrassed by it. After all, noone has ever unthreaded time's labyrinth like this from the inside of a car. You must touch the holy tracks for yourself. The truest pilgrims even take off their shoes and kiss the ground until their lips, along with the soles of their feet, start to bleed."

This book makes palpable the experiences of the dead and how tangible is the quest for this knowledge.

This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine. . . .
The hue of dungeous, and the School of Night.
--William Shakespeare

On this book's dust jacket there is a remarkable blurb by the novelist, poet, and essayist Anne Stevenson: "After reading The School of Night, I don't think there's a better English prose writer living."

The School of Night, however, is not for everyone. Its appeal is to thoughtful readers who appreciate the finer points of metaphysics, aesthetics, poetry, and literary criticism.

Basically the plot of this novel centers on two men, Sean Tallow and Daniel Pagett, who, although greatly different in temperament, form a bond of friendship that endures until they are separated by death.

A realist and pragmatist, Dan greedily pursuing tangible realities. He devotes his energies to the accumulation of wealth and properties, and the cavalier practice of hedonism.

Sean, the protagonist and narrator of the tale, is an idealistic dreamer. Obsessed with a burning desire to comprehend the past, he devotes himself to unravelling the secrets of "the School of Night," a 16th-century society devoted to the Faustian pursuit of knowledge.

In his relentless obsession with the thirty years of English history between 1590 and 1620, Sean discovers the School of Night to be "a group of dark and fearless intelligences, exploring with skepticism everything previously deemed unapproachable in any mode other than venerable credulity. ... Because no text was too sacred for their savage inquisition, they set themselves to gaze anew upon the world and its beliefs. Traditions were mere confusions in which superstitious men unnecessarily enmeshed themselves and reverence was no more and no less than fear of true knowledge."

At the heart of Sean's quest is the conundrum of Shakespearean authorship. Who actually wrote the plays attributed to the man from Stratford-on-Avon? After two decades of intensive study, Sean comes to a surprising conclusion.

The School of Night opens with these words: "Five days ago I stole the Hariot Notebooks," and it closes with a felony even more serious. The biblical saying, "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" is given a new and shattering twist.

Along the way, Wall tosses out bon mots such as, "If you want to hear God laughing just tell him your plans for the future."

Although the author throws in some steamy erotic scenes for hoi polloi, his work is slanted toward "high-brow" readers. The School of Night is a intelligent work of fiction by a skilled artist.

Alan Wall was born in Yokshire and educated at Oxford. His previous works include Jacob, Curved Light, Chronicle, Bless the Thief, Lenses, A to Z, Silent Conversations, and Richard Dadd in Bedlam & Other Stories.

A character-driven portrayal of Sir Walter Ralegh, largely told in flashback, but also involving some fairly fast realtime action.

Nye writes well on a sentence level. Generally, I found his historical portrayal believable, and his characters multifaceted, although I don't quite buy that Ralegh would be such a political innocent that he wouldn't realize why Elizabeth could by no means risk becoming pregnant. The plot is exciting; it bogged down a bit for me about 3/4 of the way through, but Ralegh's attempts to escape execution are fast-moving and gripping.

The different portrayals of Elizabeth in historical fiction are interesting. She's always larger than life, even when, as here, she has aspects of the grotesque. And generally, as here, she's shown quite negatively. I like the darkness of the way she torments her favorites in the book, though I rather doubt it's what really happened.

I disliked the homophobia with which James I and his lover Villiers were portrayed -- it's fine that James is a negative character, but the prejudice here seemed to go beyond Ralegh's normal Renaissance-era reaction.

In the final analysis, there's something self-indulgent about this book, about Ralegh and his endless self-recriminations and maundering. Still, readers of Elizabethan historical fiction will probably want to have a look at it.

With famed courtier Sir Walter Ralegh as his speaker/writer, author Robert Nye creates a fictional journal which includes all the elements of high drama the reader would expect of this vicarious peek into Ralegh's very private and intriguing world--his climb from obscurity to the highest levels of court life, the nature of his tumultuous relationship with Queen Elizabeth, his career as a soldier, his secret courtship and marriage, his loathing of the venal King James, his thirteen years in the Tower of London on false charges, and his eventual release by King James to search for gold in the New World.

The journal, which begins in 1618, moves back and forth in time, alternating vivid tales of Ralegh's tenuous existence aboard the Destiny, a ship off the coast of Guiana, with his colorful reminiscences of life in Elizabeth's court, when, as a young man he was living the heady life of a courtier. The ebb and flow of the journal creates its own narrative movement and conveys both the vibrant excitement of Ralegh's days as a young man and the melancholy self-reflection which dominates his old age. Sensuous descriptions and self-deprecating wit characterize his revelations about his younger days, while the privation and trauma he experiences at the end of his life elicit both sympathy and admiration as he tries to redeem his pride and reputation while walking a tightrope between his mutinous crew, his duplicitous king, and his Spanish enemies.

Though very exciting and full of fascinating period detail, Nye's novel is more than a biography, however. Ralegh tells us that his journal is ultimately a log of three voyages: first, the voyage of the ship Destiny--his present, day to day life; second, the voyage of his history--his past and his fortunes; and, third, the Voyage of Destiny, not his life or his ship but something more than the present, the past, or both together. This third journey is an internal one, and we observe Ralegh making an effort to achieve deeper understanding, not only of himself, but of the real values which give meaning to man's existence, not the values imposed by society. He is accompanied, on both his real and his symbolic journey, by an Indian named Guayacunda, a mysterious man whose tribe was wiped out a hundred years earlier, and whose ancestral heritage, language, culture, and even real name have vanished completely, leaving him without the ancestral values he thinks would give meaning to his existence. As they share their dreams, they search for an understanding of truth which will give value to their separate realities.

Multi-leveled and totally satisfying, The Voyage of the Destiny uses the fascinating life of Sir Walter Ralegh to illuminate the search of a thoughtful man for truth and meaning in life beyond what society and its values have imposed, not one truth at the expense of others, but truths which come from a life lived with respect and humility, not with pride or a need for recognition. In that way, Ralegh discovers, he may achieve true honor. Mary Whipple

This book is about Sir Walter Ralegh's first Guiana Voyage of 1595. Having read and admired Nicholl's earlier book, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, I picked up this one with great expectations. And, although not as good as The Reckoning, it was well worth the read. The chief flaw to this book is that Nicholl's deconstructionism is often overplayed here, leading him to conclusions or hypotheses that just aren't supported by the documents. He often reads more into Ralegh's and others' words than I think they meant. I do recommend this book, although don't accept all Nicholl's "readings" at face value.

The life of Sir Walter Raleigh will certainly seem quite strange to young students who read Tanya Larkin's biography for the Famous Explorers series. After all, here is a famous explorer, who ends up spending more years imprisoned in the Tower of London than he does exploring the New World. Young readers will learn about the times in which Raleigh lived, when Protestatns and Catholics were clashing across Europe and the New World was ripe for the picking. The story of Raleigh laying down his coat for Queen Elizabeth is a minor detail in terms of their relationship, which Larkin tries to explain. But the primary focus is on his attempts at exploration, sending the expedition to Roanoke that disappeared and later looking for a golden city in the jungles of South America. In fact, when you come down to it, Raleigh is probably accomplished far less than any other "famous" explorer. This book is illustrated with historic engraving and some very old maps, which I found particularly intteresting. Other Famous Explorers titles include John Cabot, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Hernando de Soto and Sir Francis Drake.

There are two unrelated pieces by Mark Twain in this volume, both of them fallen into (or perhaps, never rose from) obscurity, and deservedly so. "1601" is an lewd & raunchy imaginary conversation at the court of Elizabeth I. The narrator is disgusted by what he has heard -- the author partly shares the disgust and partly is fascinated with the fact that raunchy talk was not always taboo. This story has value as a look into Victorian sensibilities and into Twain's personality, but I did not enjoy reading it. I found it tedious, like Chaucer's Miller's Tale.

"Is Shakespeare Dead?" is a wonderful but misleading title. Actually this piece is about the old controversy of whether Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him, with Twain jousting for the Baconian cause. He admits at the outset that he originally developed his Baconian prejudice merely for the sake of argument with an ardent Avonian. This work adds nothing useful to the Baconian position, and would be of interest only to the most ardent collectors of Twainiana.

1601 recounts a naughty fireside chat between Shakespeare and other noteworthy english figures. Twain writes the entire text in a basterdized version of middle english spelled phoneticly. It is quite funny but difficult to read and rather course. In the second half of the book Twain argues that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays. It is a prime example of Twain's wit and one long gentlemanly slight against Shakespeare.

Yes, this IS a fart joke. In fact, rumor has it that Twain's poker buddies were its first readers. The then Sec'y of the Army had West Point Press publish it.The transcendant skill and humor raises this to greatness, despite the subject. In fact, Twain probably took this as a huge challenge.Keep it from the youngest until they can appreciate it, but read it aloud alone together every Valentine's day.