Giles Milton: Big Chef Elizabeth

By MARGIE THOMSON

A little different from your more usual history books, this one really brings to life the piratical characters who seem to have typified Elizabeth 1's flagship attempts to explore, plunder and settle the New World.

Anecdotes abound, such as that of the "flamboyant adventurer" Sir Humfrey Gilbert, at once gullible and fraudulent, who led a disastrous attempt to colonise North America but died vaingloriously along with many others of his party. More dignified characters also lurk in these pages: Sir Walter Raleigh, Pocahontas, Sir Francis Drake, Queen Elizabeth herself.

At last, after many false starts, came the Jamestown settlement, which by winter 1616 was deemed to be self-sufficient - and the rest is history.

Hodder and Stoughton

$26.95