Christopher M. Armitage is Professor of Distinguished Teaching in the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Introduction: Of letters and the man: Sir Walter Ralegh - Christopher M. Armitage, Thomas Herron and Julian Lethbridge
1. Ralegh in ruins, Ralegh on the rocks: Sir Wa'ter's two books of mutabilitie and their subject's allegorical presence in select Spenserean narratives and complaints - James Nohrnberg
2. Spenser and Ralegh: friendship and literary patronage - Wayne Erickson
3. Love's 'emperye': Ralegh's 'Ocean to Scinthia', Spenser's 'Colin Clouts Come Home Againe' and The Faerie Queene IV.vii in colonial context - Thomas Herron
4. 'Bellphebes course is now observde no more': Ralegh, Spenser and the literary politics of Cynthia holograph - Anna Beer
5. Replying to Ralegh's "The Nymph's Reply": allusion, anti-pastoral, and four centuries of pastoral invitations - Hannibal Hamlin
6. "Moving on the Waters": metaphor and mental space in Ralegh's History of the World - Michael Booth
7. Water Ralegh's liquid narrative: The Discoverie of Guiana - Lowell Duckert
8. Ralegh, Harriot, and Anglo-American ethnography - Alden T. Vaughan
9. 'most fond and fruitlesse warre': Ralegh and the call to arms - Andrew Hiscock
10. Ralegh's "As You Came from the Holy Land" and the rival virgin queens of late sixteenth-century England - Gary Waller
11. Patrilineal Ralegh - Judith Owens
12. Ralegh's image in art - Dr. Vivienne Westbrook
13. Where's Walter? The screen incarnations of Sir Walter Ralegh - Susan Anderson
Sir Walter Ralegh bibliography (1986-2010) - Christopher M. Armitage
Index

This collection of essays covers a wide range of topics about Ralegh's diversified career and achievements. The essays shed light on less familiar facets such as Ralegh as a father and his representation in the Arts; others re-examine him as poet, historian, and figure of controversy.