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Article: Children's Books
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- July 2, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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The Sea King: Sir Francis Drake and His Times, by Albert Marrin
(Atheneum, $18; ages 10-up). The past is not only a foreign country,
as L.P. Hartley famously told us, it's a fantastic one as well.
Almost any minor Victorian novelist managed to compose more with a
quill pen -- letters, diaries, light verse, collected works in 40
volumes -- than has Stephen King with his hard-driven word processor.
But even the Victorians pale before the Elizabethans. Sir Walter
Raleigh, for example, fought in France and Ireland, explored the
coasts of Trinidad and sailed up the Orinoco, became the model
courtier of the age, had his way with several of Queen Elizabeth's
maids-in-waiting, secretly wed the ...