Students of the last Cretan War tend to think that the conflict between the Ottomans and the Venetians over Crete was of little relevance to the rest of Europe. The present article draws attention to a set of English and French sources which reflect the fact that the War excited imaginations in the West. They include accounts of sieges and falls of cities, descriptions of expeditionary forces, historical reviews of Crete, travel writing and intelligence reports. We propose that they are worth revisiting for a number of reasons. First, because they offer valuable information, an important slice of which remains uncharted. Second, because they seem to challenge the widely-held perception that pre-modern ethnic identity revolved exclusively around religion. Third, because they problematize facile distinctions between the Middle Ages and Early Modernity. Α more liberal view of alterity, we argue, as well as generic hybridity, were products of the Medieval period, not the Renaissance, which may occasionally detract from earlier achievements. Fourth, the sources under discussion are fascinating because they shed light on the divide between the bolder texts written for demanding readers, and the more conventional demotic writing.