Aronson, Marc, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Quest for El Dorado , Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000.

Although written for a young adult audience, this recent biography gives a good sense of Raleigh's life as an explorer, especially in his vain journey to Venezuela to find the fabled Land of Gold.

Beer, Anna R., Sir Walter Raleigh and His Readers in the Seventeenth Century: Speaking to the People , Macmillan Press, 1997.

This historical study gives a better sense of the time that Raleigh wrote in, giving students an idea of the relationships between poets and of Raleigh's relationship with the English court.

Irwin, Margaret, That Great Lucifer: A Portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh , Chatto & Windus, 1960.

This book is not a comprehensive biography, but rather, as its title declares, a "portrait." It is divided into two parts, focusing on Raleigh's relationship with Elizabeth and then with James, her successor on the...