The Historie of the World. In Five Bookes.

RALEIGH, SIR WALTER.

William Stansby for Walter Burre

London

1617

Complete bound in one volume. Additional elaborate engraved title-page, engraved portrait o the Author on letterpress title-page, double-page maps and battle-plans, "Mind of the Front" leaf trimmed close and laid down opposite opening title. Marginal notes.

Written during his imprisonment in the Tower of London, the History of the World is Sir Walter Raleigh's most important prose work and aims to show history as a moral exercise. Initially, the work was intended to serve as an educational tool for Henry, Prince of Wales (1594-1612) and includes numerous references to warfare, law and kingship. It consists of five books nearing one million words in total and was first published in 1614. A cornerstone of historiography - one of the great works printed in England in the beginning of the 17th-century.