1geoffreymeadows
Here are some books for an Elizabethan project, maybe three years. Very tentative and not for a while.
Elizabeth I -
Elizabeth I, Somerset
Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years, Guy
Elizabeth I and Her Age (Norton Critical Edition)
Elizabeth I: Collected Works
Bad Queen Bess?: Libellous Politics, Secret Histories, and the Politics of Publicity in Elizabethan England, Lake
The Court of Elizabeth I -
Her Majesty’s Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage, Budiansky
Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I, Alford
In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire, Bergreen
Literature -
The Faerie Queene, Spenser, Hamilton editor (1590-1596)
The Hamilton edition of The Faerie Queene is extensively annotated.
Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, Sidney (Penguin Classics) (1593)
The Sidney Psalter, Philip and Mary Sidney (Oxford World’s Classics) (1586)
The Settlement -
Elizabeth and the English Reformation: The Struggle for a Stable Settlement of Religion, Haugaard
Hooker: Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
The Martin Marprelate Tracts and Elizabethan Puritanism -
The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, Collinson
Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-Puritanism, Collinson
The Martin Marprelate Tracts: A Modernized and Annotated Edition, Black editor
Pap with an Hatchet, Lyly
Whitgift and the English Church, Brook
The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s Outlaws and the Invention of Freedom, Tomkins
The Puritans: A Transatlantic History, Hall
Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were, Leland Ryken
When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter, Cooper
I’ll be spending a lot of time on the Puritans, but that might be productive, because not many American readers go into depth on the Puritans and their experiences before coming to America.
London and the Underworld -
London and the Reformation, Brigden
Elizabethan Underworld, Salgado
Rogues, Vagabonds, & Sturdy Beggars: A New Gallery of Tudor and Early Stuart Rogue Literature, Kinney, editor
Others -
The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, Yates (Routledge Classics)
I have trouble getting through these Routledge Classics - they’re usually philosophical or sociological and difficult to read - but they’re always on fascinating topics.
If anyone has comments on any of these, or would like to suggest any others, please post.
— 27 titles
Last updated 4/22/2026.
Elizabeth I -
Elizabeth I, Somerset
Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years, Guy
Elizabeth I and Her Age (Norton Critical Edition)
Elizabeth I: Collected Works
Bad Queen Bess?: Libellous Politics, Secret Histories, and the Politics of Publicity in Elizabethan England, Lake
The Court of Elizabeth I -
Her Majesty’s Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage, Budiansky
Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I, Alford
In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire, Bergreen
Literature -
The Faerie Queene, Spenser, Hamilton editor (1590-1596)
The Hamilton edition of The Faerie Queene is extensively annotated.
Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, Sidney (Penguin Classics) (1593)
The Sidney Psalter, Philip and Mary Sidney (Oxford World’s Classics) (1586)
The Settlement -
Elizabeth and the English Reformation: The Struggle for a Stable Settlement of Religion, Haugaard
Hooker: Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
The Martin Marprelate Tracts and Elizabethan Puritanism -
The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, Collinson
Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-Puritanism, Collinson
The Martin Marprelate Tracts: A Modernized and Annotated Edition, Black editor
Pap with an Hatchet, Lyly
Whitgift and the English Church, Brook
The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s Outlaws and the Invention of Freedom, Tomkins
The Puritans: A Transatlantic History, Hall
Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were, Leland Ryken
When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter, Cooper
I’ll be spending a lot of time on the Puritans, but that might be productive, because not many American readers go into depth on the Puritans and their experiences before coming to America.
London and the Underworld -
London and the Reformation, Brigden
Elizabethan Underworld, Salgado
Rogues, Vagabonds, & Sturdy Beggars: A New Gallery of Tudor and Early Stuart Rogue Literature, Kinney, editor
Others -
The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, Yates (Routledge Classics)
I have trouble getting through these Routledge Classics - they’re usually philosophical or sociological and difficult to read - but they’re always on fascinating topics.
If anyone has comments on any of these, or would like to suggest any others, please post.
— 27 titles
Last updated 4/22/2026.
