Curiosity - A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry (Hardcover)

In this striking social history, Barbara M. Benedict draws on the texts of the early modern period to discover the era's attitudes toward curiosity, a trait we learn was often depicted as an unsavory form of transgression or cultural ambition."Benedict assembles her own gorgeous literary curiosity cabinet crammed with excerpts from novels, poems, journalism, travel narratives, trial transcripts and pornography. . . . The book is teeming with big questions and fine distinctions."--Ian Sansom, The Guardian"Pithy and wide-ranging. . . . This study provides a fresh new lens through which to reinvestigate the whole of early modern English literature."--Library Journal