The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado

In May 1595, a hundred Englishmen - "gentlemen, soldiers, rowers, boat-keepers, boys, and of all sorts" - rowed up a river in South America in search of the lost golden city of El Dorado. They were led by Sir Walter Ralegh, forty years old, ready to hazard his fading reputation on this doomed gamble.

Four hundred years later Charles Nicholl follows their trail into the strange terrain of this enduring international obsession. The journey begins with Ralegh's curious "charte" in the British Museum and leads through the labrynthine delta of the Orinoco River and up to the rugged highlands of southern Venezuela. In this vivid reconstruction, Charles Nicholl blends solid historical scholarship with idiosyncratic modern reportage in a unique and entertaining mix