SIR WALTER RALEIGH

Although told with less swish and dash than Trease's biography (p. 473), this story of the colorful Elizabethan courtier-of-parts reflects the careful scholarship and smooth construction one has been led to expect from Miss Baker. The author allows no rambling side-excursions into atmospheric scene painting; but the story of Raleigh moves at a measured pace from his assignment in Ireland through his favor in Elizabeth's eyes, his marriage and break with the Queen, voyages and final humiliation and death. An absorbing story, well told, and the conversations are manufactured in direct, neutral English which present the gist of the thought without slipping into inaccurate period or contemporary vernacular.