12. Raleigh helped to create the legend of the City of Gold known as El Dorado
Sometime around 1594, Raleigh learned of the Spanish accounts of a city of gold in Central or South America. In response he outfitted an expedition which he accompanied to the New World in search of the fabled city, leading him to explore much of what is now Venezuela and Guyana. He published a fictionalized account of his journey in 1596, titled The Discovery of Guiana. In his work he documented the lost city of gold, and numerous vast gold mines in the region, all of which were evidently figments of his imagination. The book and voyage had the effect of establishing Raleigh as one of England’s greatest explorers and navigators, erasing from the public mind the failure of the colony in the New World.