Cabinet 18: Chronicles

The product of the emergent English nationalism of the end of the sixteenth century, The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland is a work of multiple authors. The first edition (1577) by Reyner Wolf and Raphael Holinshed, although popular, was a disappointment, not comprising as initially proposed, a universal cosmology. After their deaths, the work was revised and expanded considerably by a range of writers: William Harrison, John Hooker, Francis Thynne, and John Stow, among others. Significantly, the work was also heavily censored to remove politically sensitive content, thus the efforts of the censors, Henry Killigrew, Thomas Randolph, and John Hammond, must be factored into the authorship.

Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: Denham, 1587) de Beer Ec 1587 H