SOURCE: "The Prose," in Sir Walter Ralegh, Longmans, Green and Co, 1953, pp. 127–71.

In the following essay, Edwards examines the nature of Raleigh's prose works, focusing in particular on his treatment of military and naval engagements, his reflective writings, and his conception of historiography.

The profuseness and variety of Ralegh's prose writings are formidable. As a naval commander, he sends an excited account of a great battle to a friend; for his son he inscribes some rather heavy-handed paternal advice; he translates excerpts from a Sceptic philosopher; he extols the virtues of Guiana as a colony; he composes a treatise on the art of war at sea; from the Tower he gives a monarch advice on the disposing of his children in marriage, writes a tract on parliamentary government, and over the long years sets forth his sombre philosophy of history in his story of man from his beginnings...