Of Essays and Reading in Early Modern Britain

Of Essays and Reading in Early Modern Britain traces the co-evolution of the essay and the mode of literacy it enabled. Focusing on the interactive processes of reading captured by the form, Of Essays offers a new approach to early modern textuality. It shows how the genre served to record, test and disseminate the readerly skills required by a developing print culture, and how the essay was adopted as a mechanism of natural science, the public sphere, and the novel.