Book Reviews

Lorimer, Joyce (ed.) (2006) Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana, Hakluyt Society
(London), xcvii + 360 pp. £55.00 hbk.

Walter Ralegh’s 1596 account of an expedition to the Orinoco has attracted readers for
centuries and, as Joyce Lorimer comments, ‘has always raised questions of credibility’
(p. xviii) about Ralegh’s accounts of gold mines and of a golden empire, his notices of
Guianan Amazons and Acephali, and his description of extensive contacts with indige-
nous interlocutors. These questions have attracted considerable attention in the impor-
tant editions preceding that under review here. Robert Schomburgk’s The Discovery of
the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana (1849) was avowedly interested in de-
fending Ralegh’s credibility, and to this end (as the editor states) included manuscript
materials relating to his second voyage (physical copies of this edition are now quite
fragile, but – in addition to a 1970 reprint – a digitised copy can be accessed on the
Hakluyt Society website). V. T. Harlow’s edition (1928) (issued in a limited press run of
975 copies) argued a more skeptical position; Harlow added two useful appendices of
manuscript materials from the Spanish archives, one focused on the activities of Antonio
de Berrío and Domingo de Vera y Ibarguen, and the other on Ralegh’s expedition. More
recently, an edition by the anthropologist Neil Whitehead (1997) makes a case for
Ralegh’s credibility as an ‘observer and reporter of indigenous culture’ (p. lxv); this
edition has been particularly valuable for its appreciation of the text’s ethnographic
materials, to which it adds a useful, wide-ranging bibliography.
© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Society for Latin American Studies
608 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4
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This new Hakluyt Society edition, by a historian who has done extensive previous
work on Anglo-Irish contacts with Guiana, both complements and significantly extends
the work of previous editors. Lorimer’s own earlier work has focused on English and Irish
contacts with Guiana; she has taken up the distracting question of Ralegh’s truthfulness
about mines more extensively in other publications. The present edition, however, is
‘more concerned with how Ralegh approached the production of his travel narrative than
with the events described in it’ (p. xviii).
Lorimer’s crucial contribution is a transcription of Ralegh’s manuscript draft as
annotated, in all probability, by Robert Cecil. (The transcription – including an
indication of the annotations – is printed facing the corresponding pages of the
1596 text.) The two versions of the Discoverie are followed by a well-chosen selec-
tion of manuscript materials from English, Dutch and Spanish sources. Among
these, two longer items deserve special mention. The first (also present in the
Schomburgk and Harlow editions) is ‘Of the Voyage for Guiana’, a memorial pre-
pared by a member of the Ralegh circle, which argued in more succinct terms the
‘strategic and moral imperatives’ for English conquest of the supposed Guianan
empire. The second is an account of three voyages to Guiana by John Ley in 1597–1602
(discussed in a 1994 essay by Lorimer, but not previously printed). Ley’s materials
document a practical response to Ralegh’s voyage; his manuscript account, com-
posed for a family audience, makes for a fascinating comparison with Ralegh’s
printed narrative.
Lorimer’s very thorough introduction runs close to 100 pages. Slightly more than
half is devoted to an account of the reception history, a description of Ralegh’s manu-
script and the process of responses and revisions to it prior to print; an account of the
narrative’s printing (including comparison of the three 1596 editions) and of the sub-
sequent, related accounts by Ley and Lawrence Keymis. The remainder fills in crucial
context about the physical, cultural and political terrain encountered by Ralegh in
Guiana. The edition also includes a full complement of modern and contemporary
maps of the region, notes, references and a detailed index.
Lorimer’s edition, with its ‘decentring’ of Ralegh as sole witness or author, exempli-
fies a focus on textual bibliography that has come to seem of increasing importance in
studies of travel writing and cultural encounter. The materials provided make more
visible the many-handed process of composition and revision behind the printed text,
while readers are given the opportunity to examine a version of the manuscript evi-
dence for themselves. This edition moves the scholarship forward, and its clarity and
ease of use should encourage new engagements with a text already the focus of con-
siderable interest in recent decades.
Like other Hakluyt Society volumes, this authoritative and indispensable edition
is available only in hardcover. As an individual purchase, it is sufficiently costly to
highlight the advantages of membership (for annual dues of £50, members generally
receive two volumes, as well as a substantial discount on previous publications).
Whitehead’s 1997 edition in paperback – currently out of print, but still widely
available – will continue to be an attractive choice for teaching and home use, and as
a point of entry to the ethnographic literature. Both will be consulted in serious
studies of Ralegh’s text.

© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4 609
 Book Reviews

Mary C. Fuller
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

References
Schomburgk, R. (ed.) (1849) The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of
Guiana. Hakluyt Society: London.
Harlow, V. T. (ed.) (1928) The Discoverie of the Large and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana.
Argonaut Press: London.
Whitehead, N. (ed.) (1997) The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana.
University of Oklahoma Press: Norman.

© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Society for Latin American Studies
610 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 27, No. 4