Ludgate's Stones

While we have bits and fragments about Camden's early life, what we have has remained largely undigested; from Thomas Smith, Anthony Wood, John Aubrey, from Camden himself and his contemporaries, we have data, but no real narrative until after his university years. Not surprisingly, his life seems to come into focus when he gets closer to completing his major published work, the Britannia. This is often the case in early modern biographies, for the simple reason that the early years are usually sparsely documented. The result, however, tends to be over-determined accounts that seem to work ineluctably toward the defining artistic, personal, or historical achievement – the appearance of Paradise Lost, the death of Sidney, for example.