This book contains Sir Francis Drake’s (1588-1637) Sir Francis Drake Revived (first printed 1626), which covered the life an exploits of Drake's uncle and namesake Sir Francis Drake (1540-96). The younger Drake wrote these works to extol the life of his uncle during a period of heightened tension with Spain in order to encourage ‘this dull or effeminate age’ to follow the model of the elder Drake and to support calls for further privateering against Spanish ships.
Due to books such as this that helped to establish him as a national hero, Sir Francis Drake came to be seen as a figure responsible for establishing England on an international stage and ushering in what would become the British Empire. However, his actions in the Caribbean and his involvement in beginning English participation in the transatlantic slave trade have in recent years resulted in the questioning of his legacy.

Printed under the pseudonym 'Robert Burton', this book was one of the many texts printed and sold by Nathaniel Crouch. Little is known of Crouch's life but it appears that he was a shrewd businessman, stocking a huge variety of cheap and popular books on various historical subjects, which ranged from recent history and biographies to sensationalist literature on witchcraft and supernatural phenomena. Though this type of book was denounced by authors such as Alexander Pope for their populist nature and their use of many different sources, they were reprinted many times throughout the eighteenth century. This edition was printed in 1719.

All of the pocket-sized duodecimo (meaning that a sheet of paper was folded to produce 12 pages) editions of Crouch's works in the Royal Library are bound in a similar style: brown calf with scallop details at the corners, forming a lozenge shape in which is stamped an image that resembles a Greek-style comic mask. This is an unusual binding design, which appears to have been done around the late-eighteenth century, almost certainly before the books arrived in the Royal Library. They were part of the founding collection of the present Royal Library and are listed in the inventory of William IV, produced in 1837.