"The British representation of America in the colonial period is an unwieldy topic, and scholars have fashioned various points of focus for studies of imperialist discourse of the Americas, including cannibalism, translation, wonder, the figure of woman, the tropicopolitan, and the romance of the first encounter. This book adds to the studies of imperialist discourse by delineating in unprecedented detail the evolution of the British imperial hero from Sir Walter Ralegh's Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana (1596) to James Grainger's The Sugar Cane (1764), with concentration on narratives produced between Cromwell's Western Design (1655) and the British raid on Cartegena (1741)."--BOOK JACKET.