Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter
Volume 2.1 (November 1994)

Recent Publications Related to Roanoke Island Colonization

Several recent publications of interest to scholars of Roanoke Island colonization have appeared recently.

In late 1993, The Hakluyt Society published a new edition of Richard Hakluyt’s 1584 work, Discourse of Western Planting. Edited by David Beers Quinn and the late Alison Moffat Quinn, this new edition of Discourse of Western Planting is a facsimile of the original manuscript with a facing page line-by-line transcription. Also included are a general introduction, commentary notes keyed to specific lines in the text, and a bibliography of relevant scholarship. The work is volume 45 in the Hakluyt Society’s Extra Series (ISBN 0-904180-35-2) and costs £95 with a 30% discount for Hakluyt Society members. Ordering information is available through the Hakluyt Society, c/o The Map Library, The British Library, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG, England.

Another new book of interest is Ivor Noël Hume’s The Virginia Adventure, Roanoke to James Towne: An Archaeological and Historical Odyssey (New York: Knopf, 1994). The book examines English colonization efforts from the Roanoke Island expeditions of the 1580s to the Jamestown expeditions of the seventeenth century using the perspective of historical archaeology. The book treats the fundamental questions of historical archaeology as a field of study as well as the facts of the two colonization attempts. At least two reviews thus far, “Claiming the New World,” by William S. Powell, in the Raleigh, North Carolina, News and Observer (16 Oct. 1994: G4), and “Truth in Garbage: Archeology Reveals What Early Settlers in America Covered Up,” by Arthur Quinn, in the New York Times Book Review (2 Oct. 1994: 12-13), have been mostly favorable.

Michael Oberg of Montana State University at Billings has had his article “Indians and Englishmen at the First Roanoke Colony: A Note on Pemisapan’s Conspiracy, 1585-1586” published in American Indian Culture and Research Journal (18.2 [1994]: 75-89). The article is an outgrowth of Oberg’s doctoral dissertation, “Dominion and Civility: Indians, Englishmen, and the Challenge of the First American Frontiers, 1585-1685” (Syracuse U, 1984), the first chapter of which deals with the first Roanoke colony.

Finally, while not the typical scholarly outlet, The Croatan, the 1994 program guide for the Waterside Theatre’s production of Paul Green’s The Lost Colony, contains several well written articles of interest. Along with pieces on people connected with the production and life backstage are a sketch of “Paul Green,” by Roy Parker, Jr., a biographical article on “Simon Fernando of Plymouth, London and Roanoke,” by Olivia Isil, and an overview of recent archaeological “New Findings at The Lost Colony,” by Laura P. McCarty. The program is published by the Roanoke Island Historical Association, 1409 Highway 64/264, Manteo, NC 27954.

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