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This book presents the first extended study of a seminal literary work, the Annales by William Camden; the first continuous history of the reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603), written by a contemporary soon after the queen's death. James McNamara reassesses the Annales in Latin, challenging a number of recent misconceptions about the work and interpreting it in the context of contemporary Humanist traditions of history writing.

The Annales continues to exert a profound influence on how the history of the period is understood and retold, but there has been disagreement about how to interpret the work, in large part because little attention has been paid to the original Latin text. By paying close attention to Camden's use of Latin, his rhetorical technique and his intertextual engagement with classical literature, this book helps to clarify both points of detail and major unresolved interpretive questions. It restores an awareness of Camden's subjectivity, while arguing that recourse to classical Humanism allowed him to appeal to a broad, transconfessional European readership. Challenging anachronistic claims about Camden's proto-modern historical technique, it demonstrates that the Annales is a more sophisticated literary product than recent scholarship has allowed, and provides a new basis for scholarly handling of the Annales as a representation of the Elizabethan age.