The Sir Walter Raleigh Collection
is a distinguished component of the North Carolina Collection at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The collection of over one thousand
titles preserves writings by Raleigh, materials about Raleigh, and works
on English exploration during the Elizabethan Era.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1554?-1618) was born in Devon to a family of modest
means but good connections. After serving as a mercenary in France while
a teenager, Raleigh joined the court of Elizabeth I where he soon became
a favorite of the Queen. A position at court opened doors for Raleigh;
in 1584 he took over his half brother Humphrey Gilbert's patent to explore
and colonize the east coast of America. Raleigh never traveled to North
America himself, but, shortly after gaining the patent, he sent three
expeditions to North America. The first, in 1584, was chiefly a reconnaissance
mission. The second, in 1585, created a base camp for further exploration.
On the final expedition, in 1587, colonists established what was meant
to be a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina.
The colony failed, and the fate of the colonists remains a mystery. The
settlement is known today as "The Lost Colony."
In addition to explorations
of North America, Raleigh also organized several expeditions to South
America, specifically Guiana. Raleigh himself sailed on two of these missions.
The actions of Raleigh's crew on his last trip to Guiana proved to be
Raleigh's undoing. Queen Elizabeth had briefly imprisoned Raleigh in 1592
to show her displeasure over Raleigh's secret marriage. A more serious,
long-term imprisonment began in 1603. The new monarch, James I, did not
share his subjects' dislike of Spain, and the new king wanted anti-Spanish
adventurers like Raleigh neutralized. Raleigh was arrested, charged with
treason, and sentenced to death in December 1603. Raleigh remained imprisoned
in the Tower of London until 1616 when he received a reprieve of his sentence.
The reprieve was revoked in 1618 when men under Raleigh's command attacked
a Spanish camp during their explorations of the Orinoco River. On the
basis of the 1603 treason charge, Raleigh was beheaded on October 19,
1618.
Raleigh was the classic "Renaissance
man." In addition to being a soldier, courtier, and adventurer, he
was also a freethinker, poet, and historian. The Sir Walter Raleigh Collection
contains Raleigh's surviving writings in contemporary and modern editions.
In addition to Raleigh's own works, it includes volumes on Raleigh, associates
of Raleigh such as John White and Humphrey Gilbert, Elizabeth I and her
court, and English explorations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The collection is comprised of a variety of printed materials, including
primary texts, scholarly monographs and journals, historical pamphlets,
brochures, and ephemera. It also contains some audiovisual materials and
a few manuscripts. The collection has been built through gifts and purchases;
collecting is ongoing. The following examples of recent acquisitions give
some idea of the collection's range:
Walter Bigges. Sir Frances
Drakes' West Indian Voyage. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1969.
[facsimile of 1589 edition]
Anthony Burgess. A Dead
Man in Deptford. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995.
Cecil H. Clough and P. E. H.
Hair, editors. The European Outthrust and Encounter: ... Essays in
Tribute to David Beers Quinn .... Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 1994.
Ivor Noel Hume. The Virginia
Adventure: Roanoke to James Towne. New York: Knopf, 1994.
Sample title pages from the Raleigh Collection
Sir Walter
Rawleighs Ghost, or Englands Forewarner
A Brief
Relation of Sir Walter Raleigh's Troubles. . . .
The Prince
or Maxims of State
History
of the World
The Sir Walter Raleigh Collection
is available for use by both scholars and the general public without appointment.
All the materials in the collection are listed in the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill's online catalog. Several titles have been digitized and made available
to the general public on the Internet Archive website.
Click here
to see this list and digital copies of the works.
For
more information about the Sir Walter Raleigh Collection at the University
of North Carolina click here.
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