Book Summary and Reviews of Patriot or Traitor by Anna Beer

Patriot or Traitor by Anna Beer

Patriot or Traitor

The Life and Death of Sir Walter Ralegh

by Anna Beer

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  • Published:
  • Nov 2018, 416 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Who was the real Sir Walter Ralegh?

Sir Walter Ralegh's life is romantic, irresistible and of central importance to Great Britain's island story. His death is a convoluted and contested tale of bargaining, failure and betrayal. Through the Elizabethan golden age and Ralegh's famous adventures to the final act, Anna Beer presents his stranger-than-fiction life in all its richness.

How could a man once the Queen's favourite find himself consigned to the Tower by her successor? Should his legacy be fame or infamy?

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. A penetrating, spirited recounting of a courtier's roiling life and times." - Kirkus

"Beer reminds readers of Ralegh's political rise, seafaring adventures, and fraught relationships with notable monarchs in an examination more literary than scholarly." - Publishers Weekly

This information about Patriot or Traitor was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Anna Beer

Anna Beer is a cultural historian, and the author of biographies of Milton, Sir Walter Ralegh and Lady Bess Ralegh. Her most recent book is Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music, also published by Oneworld. She is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford and lives in Oxford, England.

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