Sociable Knowledge
MATERIAL TEXTS
Series Editors
Roger Chartier
Joseph Farrell
Anthony Grafton
Leah Price
Peter Stallybrass
Michael F. Suarez, S.J.
Sociable Knowledge
Natural History and the Nation in Early Modern Britain
Elizabeth Yale
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2016 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yale, Elizabeth, author.
Sociable knowledge : natural history and the nation in early modern Britain / Elizabeth Yale.
pages cm. — (Material texts)
ISBN 978-0-8122-4781-7 (alk. paper)
1. Natural history—Great Britain—History—17th century. 2. Natural history correspondence—Great Britain—History—17th century. 3. Communication in learning and scholarship—Great Britain—History—17th century. 4. Naturalists—Archives. 5. Topographical surveying—Great Britain—History—17th century. 6. Topographical surveying—Political aspects—Great Britain. 7. Natural history—Great Britain—Historiography. 8. Natural history literature—Great Britain. I. Title. II. Series: Material texts.
QH21.G7Y35 2016
508.4109′032—dc23
2015022503
To my parentsJane Louise YaleStephen Elon Yale
Contents
Chapter 2. Putting Texts, Things, and People in Motion: Learned Correspondence in Action
Chapter 4. John Aubrey’s Naturall Historie of Wiltshire: A Case Study in Scribal Collaboration
Chapter 5. Publics of Letters: Printing for (and Through) Correspondence
Note on Sources
All quotations from early modern papers observe the following conventions: Familiar abbreviations (“Dr.,” “Mr.,” and so on) have been left as is, while most abbreviations of names and words not now commonly abbreviated have been expanded in braces. Common abbreviations such as “wch,” “ye,” “yt,” however, have been silently expanded to “which,” “the,” and “that.” All superscripts have been lowered. Any text crossed out by an author, where legible, is shown with a line through it. Authorial insertions to the text are presented in angled brackets. Editorial comments and insertions are enclosed by braces (a practice necessitated by Aubrey’s use of square brackets). Where dates are conjectural (as in dating of correspondence), they are enclosed by braces. These practices largely follow the recommendations of Michael Hunter as described in “How to Edit a Seventeenth-Century Manuscript: Principles and Practice,” Seventeenth Century 10 (1995): 277–310; and Editing Early Modern Texts: An Introduction to Principles and Practice (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), with a few modifications to suit the complexities of the Aubrey manuscripts, particularly the Naturall Historie of Wiltshire (Bod MS 1 and Bod MS 2). Modifications for dealing with the Aubrey manuscripts are based in part on Kate Bennett’s editorial practices in “Materials Towards a Critical Edition of John Aubrey’s Brief Lives” (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1993).
Dates prior to 1752, when Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar, are given in the “Old Style” (the old Julian calendar was eleven days behind the Gregorian calendar in the seventeenth century). The beginning of a new year is taken to be January 1, rather than March 25. When necessary for clarity, dates are given with the doubled year—for example, February 9, 1691/92.
Abbreviations
| BL | British Library |
| Bod | Bodleian Library |
| EMLO | Early Modern Letters Online (emlo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk) |
| ESIO | Robert Gunther, ed., Early Science in Oxford |
| HO | Henry Oldenburg, Correspondence |
| Hooke, Diary | Robert Hooke, The Diary of Robert Hooke, MA, MD, FRS, 1672–1680 |
| ODNB | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |
| Pepys, Diary |
Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys
|