This doctoral thesis was composed in conjunction with a research project at Ludwig- Maximilians-Universität Munich headed by Prof. Dr. Christoph Bode. The project aimed to analyse how 'the other' has been imagined, constructed, and functionalised in English travel writing in different historical periods, always in relation to 'the self', the British nation, and Western civilisation. Within this larger framework, this thesis covers the 'beginnings' of modern travel writing in the early modern period, examining English travelogues about the New World from 1560 to 1630. In theoretically informed close readings, numerous accounts of some of the most important English voyages of the Age of Discovery are discussed in order to expose the distinctive features of each text. In doing this, the author provides detailed cartographies of the discursive representations of identity and alterity in early modern travel writing. In the first chapter, the author justifies her selection of primary texts according to several parameters: the geographic destinations, the motivations, as well as the geometric forms of the voyages, all of which define a diverse text corpus representing the discourses of 'the self' and 'the other' of the period. She already identifies the importance of the practice of multiple authorship in the travel reports, which is considered throughout the analysis. The second chapter deals with the three voyages of the slave trader John Hawkins who had contact with 'the other' in three different spaces - Africa, South America/the Caribbean, and North America - during his intercontinental triangular trade. Here it already becomes clear that identity and alterity in these texts cannot easily be described in clear and fixed dichotomies because they are highly dependent on the contextual framework. This chapter also reveals how the relationship between the English and Spanish nations declined during the 1560s, leading to the infamous image of the Spaniard as the villain in the 'black legend', which is discernible in the later writings. Chapter three traces the development of the discourses of identity and alterity in the travel reports concerning Martin Frobisher's three expeditions to discover the line of the Northwest Passage. As these voyages did not have the intended outcome, the narratives had to justify the enterprises and produce compensatory results, which informed their representations of 'the self' and 'the other'. In chapter four, the focus is upon Sir Francis Drake who conducted a circular voyage by his circumnavigation of the world. The travelogues about this national achievement deal with the description of the incorporation of both Spanish and Native American wealth and culture. Drake's mixed identity as 'national hero' and 'gentleman pirate' as well as his supposed apotheosis by the local people during his landfall in Nova Albion have a strong influence on the discourses. In chapter five, Sir Walter Raleigh's famous Discovery of Guiana is read as a complex textual labyrinth that reflects the intricate, multi-layered experience of 'the other' during Raleigh's journey in the Orinoco basin. His search for the golden city of Manoa (or El Dorado) constructs his expedition as a quest to find a geographical spot in the 'amazing maze' of the South American mainland. Chapter six focuses upon John Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles and presents an analysis of the representations of the English settlers and North American natives during the early English attempts at colonisation. The voyage in the form of an 'areal expansion' permits a deeper insight into the alterity of the New World: the more static form of being abroad compels the travellers to take a closer look at the space and people that live in it as well as their own internal differences. In the last chapter, the author summarises her findings and states that in the early modern English travelogue about the New World the concepts of collective identity and generalisation are predominant in the constructions of 'the self' and 'the other'. These distinct notions of collectivity, which can be extracted from - among other things - the verifiable practice of multiple authorship, lead her to the conclusion that the genre at that time merely allows for staging precursory forms of modern individual subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]