ch. 1.2 Locke’s Library and His Choice of Books Giuliana Di Biase The many travel books in Locke’s library stand atop the broader examples of travel writing in which Locke was, in various ways, deeply involved. The popularity of published travelogues during the seventeenth century—the so-called Silver Age of travel—provided Locke with a wide variety of materials to enrich his library. He selected books to own based on different criteria. One was profundity, and another reliability of reporting. For instance, he did not own Jan Struys’ account of his world travels, a widely read text published in Dutch in 1676 and translated into several languages (including English in 1683 and 1684), yet not particularly well-regarded for its reliability. Similarly, he did not own the Crudities by Thomas Coryate (1611), one of the most prominent accounts of Italian journeys in Elizabethan-Jacobean England but also ‘not a very profound work’ (Lough 1953a, xxv). Locke, on the other hand, did own two copies of the trustworthy letters from Italy penned by the Bishop of Salisbury, Gilbert Burnet (1686 and 1687; LL 528 and 527), whose many works figure prominently in Locke’s library...
Giuliana Di Biase, “Introduction. Locke’s Library of Travels and the Scope of this Volume”
Giuliana Di Biase
Primo
2026-01-01
Abstract
ch. 1.2 Locke’s Library and His Choice of Books Giuliana Di Biase The many travel books in Locke’s library stand atop the broader examples of travel writing in which Locke was, in various ways, deeply involved. The popularity of published travelogues during the seventeenth century—the so-called Silver Age of travel—provided Locke with a wide variety of materials to enrich his library. He selected books to own based on different criteria. One was profundity, and another reliability of reporting. For instance, he did not own Jan Struys’ account of his world travels, a widely read text published in Dutch in 1676 and translated into several languages (including English in 1683 and 1684), yet not particularly well-regarded for its reliability. Similarly, he did not own the Crudities by Thomas Coryate (1611), one of the most prominent accounts of Italian journeys in Elizabethan-Jacobean England but also ‘not a very profound work’ (Lough 1953a, xxv). Locke, on the other hand, did own two copies of the trustworthy letters from Italy penned by the Bishop of Salisbury, Gilbert Burnet (1686 and 1687; LL 528 and 527), whose many works figure prominently in Locke’s library...I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
