The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado

"This brilliantly written reconstruction of Sir Walter Raleigh's 1595 South American journey combines painstaking scholarship, vivid travelogue, and an intuitive sensitivity for the many meanings of the El Dorado myth. . . . Nicholl brings this six-week expedition to life. . . . A rare treat for both intellect and imagination."—Kirkus Reviews

"Walter Raleigh . . . was one of those Elizabethan all-rounders who still seem staggeringly larger than life. . . . Mr. Nicholl's cogent reconstruction of the journey uses Raleigh's own account, 'The Discoverie of Guiana'—part truth, part advertising, part rhapsody—and much well-found ancillary material."—Anthony Bailey, New York Times

"Like The Reckoning, his brilliant account of the murder of Christopher Marlowe, Nicholl's new book might be called an exercise in historical conjuring. The Creature in the Map is an effort not only to analyse but also to call into presence the lived experience of the voyage Raleigh undertook in 1595 to the Orinoco Delta in what is now Venezuela."—Stephen Greenblatt, Times Literary Supplement

"Charles Nicholl belongs to an elite company, that of historians who know how to make research into arcane matters and distant times as engrossing as In Cold Blood or All the President's Men."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post

Library Journal

In the grand scheme of things, Sir Walter Raleigh's 1595 expedition to the Guiana Highlands of Venezuela did not count for much. English writer Nicholl, whose previous books have been travel adventures or Elizabethan biography, combines his interests to reconstruct Raleigh's search for El Dorado based on the original documents and Nicholl's 1992 journey along the same route. The result is less than the sum of its parts. Specialists expecting a book similar to Nicholl's The Reckoning (LJ 3/1/94) and general readers expecting a rollicking travel adventure similar to Borderlines (LJ 6/1/89) will both be somewhat disappointed. Yet Nicholl has produced a useful study that places Raleigh's journey in the context of the El Dorado legend. While general readers will enjoy the account of Nicholl's journey, his book is primarily for specialized collections in Elizabethan England and the European exploration of South America.-Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette