Nevertheless, in the composition of Raleigh’s History of the World, Orwell’s apocryphal tale does not quite square with the facts. This was hardly an ideal research centre, but with characteristic energy Raleigh devoted years of work to his History of the World. Written during the first seven years of his long (1603-1616) incarceration, The History of the World is Raleigh’s most important prose work. It’s for these reasons, principally, that Raleigh’s work was construed by King James as critical of the new Stuart dynasty. Raleigh’s History has many reflective passages, characteristically elegiac in tone, and one memorably famous passage which, in hindsight, expresses a kind of premonition about his fate.

Source: The Guardian December 25, 2017 05:37 UTC