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This volume explores the writing practices and book collections of a range of individuals in early modern Kent including monks, a mariner and an apothecary as well as members of the gentry and clergy and urban administrators. In a county with ready access to metropolitan, courtly and continental influences, a vibrant provincial book culture flourished, in which literacy was prized and book ownership widespread. Reinforcing the important social role played by the literate and revealing something of their creative potential, the essays gathered here also uncover an appetite for debate, reflected in the books owned, lent, written and published by the Kentish in the period covered. Underpinning all of this is an enduring culture of sociability, centred around the book as an object to be shared.
Interdisciplinary in approach, this collection brings together specialists in the history of the book, literary scholars, social historians and librarians to explore the nature of authorship and the dynamics of the market for print and manuscript books outside London. It demonstrates the rich potential of regional archival study to extend our understanding of medieval and early modern literature.
List of contents
Introduction: Kentish Book Culture. Claire Bartram
Part I Textual Production, Archives and Libraries
1 Reading, Writing and the Culture of Books at Canterbury Cathedral Priory in the Fifteenth Century. Meriel Connor
2 Writing the Town in Mid-Fifteenth-Century Sandwich: The Contribution of John Serle, Common Clerk. Sheila Sweetinburgh
3 Chronicling Dover: Authorship, Archives and Audiences, c. 1580-1604. Claire Bartram
4 The Sinful Life and Woeful Death of William Rogers: Textual Legacies and Puritan Culture in 1630s West Kent. Lorraine Flisher
5 'Quaere who hath Coriats Travels?' Henry Oxinden's Book Loans, 1647-1658. Sheila Hingley
Part II Literate Identities, Networks and Sociability
6 Book Printing and Protestant Reform in Reformation Canterbury, 1532-1556. Stuart Palmer
7 'Wrytynge out of the playe booke': Literacy and Identity in the Cinque Ports and Ancient Towns in the Sixteenth Century. Gillian Draper
8 Literacy and Cultural Identity in the Dutch Immigrant Community of Sandwich, 1561-1650. Jane Andrewes
9 William Somner and his Books: Provenance Evidence for the Networks of a Seventeenth-Century Canterbury Antiquarian. Sarah Griffin and David Shaw
About the author
Claire Bartram is Senior Lecturer in Renaissance Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University.
