Queen Elizabeth I: Past and Present. Ed. Christa Jansohn.

• R. A. Foakes

The 400th anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 2003 inevitably focused renewed attention on someone who, both in life and since her death, has always possessed an iconic status. The anniversary was marked by the publication of editions of her written works and letters, which stand at the head of the useful fifteen-page list of “Selected Readings” printed at the end of a new collection of essays edited by Christa Jansohn. This substantial list of works relating to Elizabeth suggests how enormous a full bibliography would be. The new volume of essays, which are based on papers delivered at the Centre for British Studies at the University of Bamberg, are mainly contextual, concerned with Elizabeth as perceived in history, literature and opera rather than with the queen herself. The volume shows that there is still much to be learned about the ways in which she exerted a cultural influence both in her own times and in later ages. Some of the essays collected in it provide fresh perspectives on activities at her court and during her progresses, while others explore aspects of her afterlife on the stage and in fiction.

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