Books, Manuscripts, Gifts

Access to reading material in the seventeenth century was heavily dependent on contacts outside the commercial networks of the book trade. This chapter uncovers the unspoken codes that governed gifts of books and hospitality among scholars, collectors, and other interested parties. Among Pepys’s associates these non-commercial exchanges of texts were essential to successful information gathering and important in affirming social ties. Manuscript circulation was part of these exchanges, with natural philosophers, merchants, and government officials using manuscript proposals to test their ideas and to promote scientific or political schemes. Within Pepys’s networks the movement of manuscript and printed books emerges as part of national and international exchanges in favours, in intelligence, and in luxury goods.

Computer Science · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · History · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies