Penelope Rich and Her Circle (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

This volume, published in 1911, is the biography of Penelope Devereux Rich, the daughter of the first Earl of Essex. She was considered the most beautiful woman at the court of Elizabeth I, and was idealized by the Elizabethan and early Jacobite poets (such as Sir Philip Sidney) for her beauty, intelligence, and bravery. Rawson’s engaging, if slightly romantic, narrative of Rich’s life is an enduring portrait of this captivating woman.