16th century -- fiction

In pitch-perfect and compulsively readable prose, Burgess recreates the world of Elizabethan England--from the court and its intrigue to the theater and its genius--in this life of Christopher Marlowe, murdered in suspicious circumstances in a tavern brawl in Deptford.

Oliver Tressilian helped defeat the Spanish Armada only to be betrayed by his half-brother, forcing him to become a fugitive. Now a pirate off the Barbary Coast and follower of Islam, Captain Tressilain, the Sea-Hawk, finds adventure and romance in his new life.

In 1587, sailing to Spain on board Sir Francis Drake's ship "Elizabeth Bonaventure," seventeen-year-old surgeon's apprentice Thomas Spyre finds that, with the sudden death of his master, he must take over as ship's surgeon and prove his skill not only as a doctor but also as a fighter when he is enlisted by Drake to face battle.