1) 'A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia' - a truly momentous book giving many their first glimpse of the New World and its Native peoples. Written by Thomas Hariot, an English polymath who joined Sir Walter Raleigh's first expedition to America in 1585...

2) ..which tried and failed to establish a colony on the island of Roanoke in Virginia (now part of North Carolina). Hariot studied in detail the lives of the region's native inhabitants and his observations were illustrated by John White who had also travelled to Roanoke..

3) In his book published in Amsterdam in 1588, Hariot has chapters exploring the natives' manner of dress, fishing, boatbuilding, conjuring, and dancing. The chapter displayed focuses on their 'manner of praying with their Rattles about the fire.'

4) The text is accompanied by a remarkable illustration by John White showing Native American men and women gathered around a fire, conducting a prayer-song and shaking ceremonial rattles..

5) During the same 1585 expedition, the artist John White would also paint an amazing series of watercolours depicting the native Algonquian people and their landscape, which are now kept in the British Museum.

6) Centuries before Darwin's voyage on the Beagle, White catalogued a large amount of the flora and fauna he encountered on his 1585 journey to the New World; famous among his depictions is this exquisite watercolour painting of a Loggerhead Turtle.

7) 'A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia' by Thomas Hariot is on display at the Winchester College Treasury. #books #history #america #winchester @rebeccaromney