A major historical biography: the dramatic, harrowing and contested story of Sir Walter Ralegh ‘Much of what we think we know about Sir Walter Ralegh – potatoes, tobacco, spreading his cloak over a “plashy place” – is fable. The real story is far more exciting. Here was a man who both achieved and failed extravagantly, who was both hated and loved excessively, and who both lived life and faced death courageously. In this fascinating, eloquent and scholarly new book, Anna Beer reveals the full measure of the man.’