SOURCE: "Lodge's A Margarite of America: A Dystopian Vision of the New World," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 17, No. 4, Fall, 1980, pp. 407-14.

In the following essay, Roberts discusses A Margarite of America as Lodge's entry into a contemporary debate on the nature of the New World.

Thomas Lodge recorded the unusual circumstances surrounding the composition of his novella A Margarite of America (1596) when he explained in the dedication that he began writing the tale during a treacherous sea journey through the Straits of Magellan.¹ Lodge was a member of Thomas Cavendish's ill-fated second expedition to South America, which ended in the scattering of the ships, the mutiny of the crew, and the death of the famous sea captain. Of the more than four hundred who embarked on the voyage, Lodge was one of a handful of men who returned safely to England.² The author briefly described the...