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The voyage of the Destiny
New York:: Putnam,, (1982.). Fine in near fine dust jacket (a couple of small nicks to dj edges).. First US printing. Novel based on the life of Sir Walter Raleigh, and told in his self-critical, urgent and truthful voice, spanning the years from 1618 to 1660. 387 pp. Dust jacket art by Craig Dodd.
387 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
About the author
Robert Nye
66 books48 followersRobert Nye was an English writer, playwright and poet.
Nye started writing stories for children to entertain his three young sons. Nye published his first adult novel, Doubtfire, in 1967.
Nye's next publication after Doubtfire was a return to children's literature, a freewheeling version of Beowulf which has remained in print in many editions since 1968. In 1970, he published another children's book, Wishing Gold, and received the James Kennaway Memorial Award for his collection of short stories, Tales I Told My Mother (1969).
During the early 1970s Nye wrote several plays for BBC radio including “A Bloody Stupit Hole” (1970), “Reynolds, Reynolds” (1971), and a version of Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist (1971). He was also commissioned by Covent Garden to write an unpublished libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, Kronia (1970). Nye held the position of writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh, 1976-1977, during which time he received the Guardian fiction prize, followed by the 1976 Hawthornden Prize for his novel Falstaff.
He continued to write poetry, publishing Darker Ends (1969) and Divisions on a Ground (1976), and to prepare editions of other poets with whose work he felt an affinity: Sir Walter Ralegh, William Barnes, and Laura Riding. His own Collected Poems appeared in 1995. His selected poems, entitled The Rain and The Glass, published in 2005, won the Cholmondeley Award. From 1977 he lived in County Cork, Ireland. Although his novels have won prizes and been translated into many languages, it is as a poet that he would probably have preferred to be remembered. The critic Gabriel Josipovici described him as "one of the most interesting poets writing today, with a voice unlike that of any of his contemporaries."
Nye started writing stories for children to entertain his three young sons. Nye published his first adult novel, Doubtfire, in 1967.
Nye's next publication after Doubtfire was a return to children's literature, a freewheeling version of Beowulf which has remained in print in many editions since 1968. In 1970, he published another children's book, Wishing Gold, and received the James Kennaway Memorial Award for his collection of short stories, Tales I Told My Mother (1969).
During the early 1970s Nye wrote several plays for BBC radio including “A Bloody Stupit Hole” (1970), “Reynolds, Reynolds” (1971), and a version of Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist (1971). He was also commissioned by Covent Garden to write an unpublished libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, Kronia (1970). Nye held the position of writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh, 1976-1977, during which time he received the Guardian fiction prize, followed by the 1976 Hawthornden Prize for his novel Falstaff.
He continued to write poetry, publishing Darker Ends (1969) and Divisions on a Ground (1976), and to prepare editions of other poets with whose work he felt an affinity: Sir Walter Ralegh, William Barnes, and Laura Riding. His own Collected Poems appeared in 1995. His selected poems, entitled The Rain and The Glass, published in 2005, won the Cholmondeley Award. From 1977 he lived in County Cork, Ireland. Although his novels have won prizes and been translated into many languages, it is as a poet that he would probably have preferred to be remembered. The critic Gabriel Josipovici described him as "one of the most interesting poets writing today, with a voice unlike that of any of his contemporaries."
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 14, 2013
Robert Nye is a lavish and magnificent raconteur…
Many events of the past we see bigger than they really were and many just smaller… And so much remains invisible.
And history is a tortuous road to the present on which so many had gone astray and so much had been lost…
The Voyage of the Destiny is one more attempt to open one more page of history and to shed a light on one more fate…
The present is the mirror in which the past is reflected distorted…
When Alexander the Great came to the edge of the world of his time, and pitched his camp on the banks of the river Indus, he told his builders to build gigantic pavilions there and to fill each pavilion with a giant’s furniture.
Then Alexander instructed his armourers to hammer out swords as long as lances, shields as big and strong as mill wheels, axes like battering rams, and helmets the size of hives for monstrous bees.
When he withdrew and sailed for home, Alexander ordered this vast and ghostly camp to be left standing, with all its huge accoutrements intact.
He wanted to cast a long shadow. He wanted to make people believe that he had been a giant, and that his men had been only a little less, and that this has been a camp occupied by an army of gods.
Many events of the past we see bigger than they really were and many just smaller… And so much remains invisible.
And history is a tortuous road to the present on which so many had gone astray and so much had been lost…
The Voyage of the Destiny is one more attempt to open one more page of history and to shed a light on one more fate…
…once upon a time there was a song they used to sing in the streets of London:Ralegh doth time bestride,
He sits twixt wind and tide.
Yet uphill he cannot ride –
For all his bloody pride!
Perhaps they sing it still? Or will again? All the same –
Pride?
The first and worst and deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins, of course.
The present is the mirror in which the past is reflected distorted…
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September 22, 2019hey yeah! a big juicy adventure story, w/ the adventure in question being death, sir walter having royally screwed up in not securing a pardon from his death sentence before sailing for guiana. every bit as true to its time period as falstaff & faust but blessedly free of the skeeviness that blemished those two novels. infelicities were (a) the midsection of the book is a doldrums chock-full of these philosophical chitchats with the native dude christoval (enlivened admittedly by some wild psychedelic kokha-leaf-fueled nightmares); and (b) it's never quite established why sir walter is so dead-set on sailing back to certain death in england, tho i guess the q of whether that's courageous or suicidal is kinda central to ye olde narrative. that his attempted escape from england still manages to be suspenseful despite the obvious outcome is a testament to the fine storytelling up in here. (also dang, can any jacobean scholars confirm/deny the thing about james i and the deer carcasses?)
August 14, 2014
Sir Walter Ralegh gives the inside poop on what the reign of James I was like (not very wonderful, from Ralegh's perspective), his association with Queen Elizabeth (he was a favorite for a while, invited into her bed, but not into her pussy), his final voyage to find gold in Guiana (there was none), his cursed voyage home (made easier now and then by chewing the khoka leaves given him by his faithful Indian companion) and the depth of his betrayals by those he trusted. It is about the rarified life of kings and princes, and how ordinary people stand little chance with them, but they can still come out with a shred of nobility, but not their lives.
A quite wonderful book, as good as I remember it from 20 years or so ago, and deeper and more complex than my memory had retained. Wonderfully dark and moody, and accepting of the shit hand the world deals out, for what else can we do but accept it and play it as well as possible?
I will remember that old queen, James I, and his fawning, mincing catamites, Ralegh's explanation of what a cocaine high feels like (he likes it!), Queen Elizabeth as an old vamp with cheesy toes, preserving her virginity, but not her virtue.
And Ralegh's long but very wonderful final moments on the scaffold.
A quite wonderful book, as good as I remember it from 20 years or so ago, and deeper and more complex than my memory had retained. Wonderfully dark and moody, and accepting of the shit hand the world deals out, for what else can we do but accept it and play it as well as possible?
I will remember that old queen, James I, and his fawning, mincing catamites, Ralegh's explanation of what a cocaine high feels like (he likes it!), Queen Elizabeth as an old vamp with cheesy toes, preserving her virginity, but not her virtue.
And Ralegh's long but very wonderful final moments on the scaffold.
June 6, 2021
Complex and elegiac, but nonetheless full of incident and character. It is a multilayered portrait of tumultuous times, and is remarkably satisfying in spite of its somewhat awkward structure. Recommended.
August 8, 2011
Sir Walter Raleigh writing letters to his son - wasn't working for me. Or maybe I'm distracted by other books I'm more excited to read. I gave up after 30 pgs.
July 23, 2020
A star fallen from heaven
July 20, 2025
Kind of a long read, but interesting to follow his journey, his defeats, his return, his death.
January 14, 2024
Exceptionally fine novel - surprisingly fine novel - I am amazed I enjoyed it so much because, for me, an almost guaranteed turn off is anything to do with the 'golden' Elizabethan era (I am talking about the first Elizabeth, surely nobody imagines the late Hanoverian Haus frau has given a name to anything?). As an Irish person the years of the Tudors/Stuarts were, for Irish people, anything but glorious (but then almost any period of Irish history for the past thousand years when England was in power were less than glorious) but I have a particular loathing for Elizabeth as she has to be one of the most extreme examples of indifference to her 'subjects' on record - please reference her treatment of the ordinary sailors who had won 'her' victory over the Spanish Armada. But then this novel is wonderfully jaundiced in its view of 'Gloriana' and the whole gang of 'heroes' she surrounded herself with.
This is a sharp, powerful and splendidly written novel - I had read other things by Robert Nye (but not this novel) but that was over forty years ago and I had forgotten what a truly superb writer he was. I can only compare this novel to Ronald Blythe's 'Assassin' another splendid historical novel which I read recently (and have reviewed on Goodreads) and also set in the reign of James I & VI. It is of a quality that suggests comparisons with biographies rather then most other historical novels (and has any other period in English history inspired more bad novels then that of the Tudors and Stuarts) it is a damned sight better then the majority of histories on that period. Without indulging in grisly 'ye olde' English Robert Nye creates a voice for Walter Raleigh that is anything but a modern one dressed up in doublet and hose. It is a startlingly convincing portrait of Raleigh as a flawed man who gradually sees though his own lies, deceits and braggadocio to understand himself his era. For a writer to present a character, particularly a historical character, gaining insight and understanding of themselves is not easy and Nye handles it brilliantly.
Having read this novel I am searching out Robert Nye's other works - all of which were extravagantly praised on publication - he is a writer of immense skill and is certainly in danger of becoming one of those forgotten classics.
A wonderful start to 2024 reading.
This is a sharp, powerful and splendidly written novel - I had read other things by Robert Nye (but not this novel) but that was over forty years ago and I had forgotten what a truly superb writer he was. I can only compare this novel to Ronald Blythe's 'Assassin' another splendid historical novel which I read recently (and have reviewed on Goodreads) and also set in the reign of James I & VI. It is of a quality that suggests comparisons with biographies rather then most other historical novels (and has any other period in English history inspired more bad novels then that of the Tudors and Stuarts) it is a damned sight better then the majority of histories on that period. Without indulging in grisly 'ye olde' English Robert Nye creates a voice for Walter Raleigh that is anything but a modern one dressed up in doublet and hose. It is a startlingly convincing portrait of Raleigh as a flawed man who gradually sees though his own lies, deceits and braggadocio to understand himself his era. For a writer to present a character, particularly a historical character, gaining insight and understanding of themselves is not easy and Nye handles it brilliantly.
Having read this novel I am searching out Robert Nye's other works - all of which were extravagantly praised on publication - he is a writer of immense skill and is certainly in danger of becoming one of those forgotten classics.
A wonderful start to 2024 reading.
October 4, 2010
This fictional novel illuminates the life of Sir Walter Raleigh as told by himself via a series of letters to his son from aboard the Destiny. Of interest, though I'd much prefer to explore such a fascinating historical figure through his own true personal letters and accounts from the day in which he lived. I need not have the language of his life modernized, rather I enjoy a distant voice.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews