CAMDEN, William.
£1,500 · Offered by Sokol Books
First complete edition of this ground-breaking study of the reign of Elizabeth I. Parts 1-3 had been published in 1615, and Part 4, covering the years 1589-1603 in 1625. In the present edition they combine for the first time and form the first full-scale history of Elizabeth s reign. They were enormously influential in how the queen was perceived in later times. Camden composed his annals in a deliberately classical style and form; he desired to emulate the historiography of Polybius and Tactius, writing in a manner which assessed Why, How, and To what end, things have been done, and Whether the thing done hath succeeded according to Reason; and all that remains will be an idle Sport and Foolery, than a profitable Instruction: and thought for the present it may delight, for the future it cannot profit (Camden, The Authour to the Reader, Annales). This approach to the study of history is in many ways similar to Francis Bacon; as both valued state affairs as the most important and chief of subjects, a Tacitean approach. The work was suggested to Camden by William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. Camden s sources, at least those that he explicitly mentions, are the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Fortescue, and Henry Cuffe, the secretary of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. The events are not written in a continuous narrative, but instead in an antiquated style where events of each year are provided in separate entries. Events are allegedly spun in order to encourage a pro-Eliz
- Binding: Hardcover
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