A volume in the WRITERS AND THEIR WORK series, which draws upon recent thinking in English studies to introduce writers and their contexts. Each volume includes biographical material, an examination of recent criticism, a bibliography and a reappraisal of a major work by the writer.

For many years, scholarship on Thomas Browne (1605-1682) saw him as tangential to his period's thought and writing: an obscure and quaint stylist, detached from the turbulence of mid-seventeenth century England. This volume contributes to the current reevalution of Browne's involvement in his times: identifying his political commitments, milieu, reading, and readers. The essays collected in this volume place Browne's works in unexpected contexts - in Holland, Poland and Germany, in Restoration politics, in publishing history and medical theory. It presents new research into his reputation in...