Full Description
The early seventeenth-century traveler Thomas Coryate's five-month tour of Western Europe culminated in Coryats Crudities, one of the strangest travelogues published in early modern England. This edition abridges the Crudities' more than 900 pages to a manageable size, focusing on episodes most likely to be of interest to students—such as Coryate's descriptions of Venetian mountebanks, courtesans, and Jews; his crossing of the Alps; and his attendance at a Corpus Christi celebration in Paris.
The selection of contextual materials includes illustrations from the first edition, along with a sampling from another eccentric feature of the Crudities: a collection of mock commendatory poems making fun of Coryate and his journey.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Thomas Coryate: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Thomas Coryate: Selections
Appendix A: Paratextual Materials from the 1611 Edition of Coryats Crudities
Laurence Whitaker, ""Certain opening and drawing distiches"" arising out of the Crudities
Ben Jonson, ""Certain other verses, as charms to unlock the mystery of the Crudities""
Thomas Coryate, ""To the High and Mighty Prince Henry""
Thomas Coryate, ""The Epistle to the Reader""
Ben Jonson, ""Character of the famous Odcombian, or rather Polytopian, Thomas the Coryate""
Ben Jonson, ""To the Right Noble Tom, Tell-Troth, of his Travails, the Coryate of Odcombe, and his Book now going to travel""
Thomas Coryate, ""An Introduction to the ensuing verses""
Selected ""Panegyricke Verses"" by John Donne and Hugh Holland
Appendix B: Materials from Coryats Crambe (1611)
Ben Jonson, ""To the London Reader, on the Odcombian writer, Polytopian Thomas the Traveller""
Hugh Holland, ""The same hand again to the Idiot's Readers""
from Thomas Coryate, ""Certain orations pronounced by the author of the Crudities""
Appendix C: Additional Materials from Other Sources
Letter from Thomas Coryate to Sir Michael Hicks
""On Tom Coriat""
Works Cited and Select Bibliography
