Ralegh's Last Journey. A Tale of Madness, Vanity and Treachery

Cover Type: Softcover
Book Condition: Fine
Jacket Condition: None Issued
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publisher Place: London
Publisher Year: 2003
Edition: First Edition

Description: 242 pages. Book appears to have hardly been read and is in Fine condition throughout. The only exception is a small inscription to the inside page.

Publishers Description: This title is a study in vanity and ambition, madness and resignation. Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the greatest courtiers of his day, Elizabeths favourite, dashing, brilliant, wily and powerful. This book book takes as its subject his extraordinary last months, during the summer of 1618 when, his last voyage a failure and under great suspicion from James I, he was escorted back to London by Sir Lewis Stucley; the tragi-comic story of this journey, from Plymouth to the scaffold, of Raleighs grotesque behaviour along the way, of the web of deceit and counter-treachery woven between him and his reviled and much misunderstood betrayer "Judas" Stucley, and of their travelling companion the French physician and double agent Dr Manourie. Around this last journey will be linked the other players in the drama: Bess, Raleighs handsome, resourceful and distracted wife; Carew, their 13-year-old son; and Samuel King, privateering captain and link with past glories. On countless occasions Raleigh has the opportunity to escape, and refuses it; then, when he at last opts for freedom (in a false beard), he finds himself betrayed again.

ISBN: 9780007172450