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Walter Raleigh
d. 1618
Explorer, courtier, poet, and political schemer all at once, this Elizabethan figure lived a life dramatic enough for a novel. He helped inspire England’s early colonial ambitions, wrote vividly from prison, and met a famously public end on the scaffold.
2 Audiobooks
The Discovery of Guiana
by Walter Raleigh
The Last Fight of the Revenge
by Walter Raleigh
About the author
Born around 1552 in Devon, Walter Raleigh became one of the most striking figures at the court of Elizabeth I. He was a soldier, seafarer, writer, and royal favorite, remembered for his role in England’s early ventures in North America, especially the attempts to establish a colony at Roanoke.
Raleigh’s life swung between triumph and disaster. He gained titles, influence, and estates, but later fell from favor, was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and spent years writing there. His History of the World is one of his best-known works, showing the same ambition and restless energy that marked his public life.
After Elizabeth’s death, his fortunes worsened under James I. A failed expedition to South America sealed his fate, and he was executed in 1618. Centuries later, he remains a fascinating symbol of the adventurous, dangerous, and often ruthless world of the Elizabethan age.