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Patriot or Traitor
- The Life and Death of Sir Walter Ralegh
- Narrated by: Marian Hussey
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
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Patriot or Traitor
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Summary
Sir Walter Ralegh’s life is romantic, irresistible, and of central importance to our island story. His death is a convoluted and contested tale of bargaining, failure and betrayal. Through the Elizabethan golden age and Ralegh’s famous adventures to the final act, Anna Beer presents his stranger-than-fiction life in all its richness.
How could a man once the Queen’s favorite find himself consigned to the Tower by her successor? Should his legacy be fame or infamy? Who was the real Sir Walter Ralegh?
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What listeners say about Patriot or Traitor
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rachel Redford
- 05-12-18
A star at which the world hath gazed
At the final treason trial of Walter Raleigh (I can't adjust to Beer's choice of the unconventional spelling!) which resulted in his execution in 1618, the judge called him 'a star at which the world hath gazed'.
It is this dramatic star quality which Beer captures (that is in the glorious, celestial sense, not the X-factor kind of star!), from his early ascendency as Queen Elizabeth's multi-talented, flamboyant and favoured courtier, through his (ultimately doomed) voyages of exploration; three imprisonments in the Tower (one for 13 years after being found guilty of involvement of a plot to overthrow the new King, James vi in 1603), to his final piece of intensely moving theatre at the scaffold powerfully presented by Beer.
Raleigh's career was crammed with the barbarism of the age (as commissioned officer in the English army in Ireland; in Virginia and South America), but there was a great deal more to him. His writings are prodigious including the 800-page History of the World (a typically grandiloquent, ambitious title!) written in the Tower; a torrent of brilliant letters from which Beer quotes; superb travel writing from his voyages of exploration - and a mass of poetry. (Beer's references have sent me to these startlingly timeless poems).
Beer's writing style is studded with colloquial expressions ('what happened in Ireland stayed in Ireland'; 'the dinner party from hell'), but it works in a life of one so vibrant and mercurial. The narration is pleasant and appropriate BUT there are irritating mispronunciations. Sherborne, so essential to the Raleigh story, occurs many, many hundreds of times and a moment on Google would have told Marian Hussey that it is pronounced SHERB'N not SHER-BORNE. (She could have corrected Azores at the same time).
That apart, it's a fabulous slice of history well told, even if I'm not sure Beer does answer her question 'Patriot or Traitor?', but perhaps that's up to us to decide.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Melmo25
- 07-04-24
Poor Devon lad rises above his station and has a ball ,
This book totally blew me away.
It dispells any idea you thought you had of the man.
And what a man.
I'm thinking he had some sort of Bi polar disorder which would explain a lot about his personality, actions and deeds.
He achieved so much , I didn't know about most of the things he accomplished in his life time.
I was deeply moved by the account of his death.
This author is phenomenal.
I adored all the poetry by Raleigh , bought me to tears.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ali
- 09-03-21
So well researched and interesting
His story is still surprising and enthralling even so many years on. This book talks about his life in amazing detail and when something is uncertain discusses both sides beliefs of what happened in an unbiased way, I really enjoyed this and I don't usually go for a historic book!
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