![]() | Curiosities and Texts: The Culture of Collecting in Early Modern England Subjects: England -- Civilization -- 17th century; Collectors and collecting -- England -- History -- 17th century; English literature -- Early modern 1500–1700 -- History and criticism; Curiosities and wonders -- England -- History -- 17th century; Natural histor; A craze for collecting swept England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Aristocrats and middling-sort men alike crammed their homes full of a bewildering variety of physical objects: antique coins, scientific instruments, minerals, mummified corpses, zoological specimens, plants, ethnographic objects from Asia and the Americas, statues, portraits. Why were these bizarre jumbles of artifacts so popular? Marjorie Swann is Professor of English at Hendrix College. |
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