“Mysteries of Commerce”1: Influence, Licensing, Censorship, and the Literature of Long-Distance Travel

‘The countrey is too colde, the people beastly be’: Elizabethan Representations of Russia

“…In his account, Fletcher portrayed Russia as a vicious cycle of tyranny and oppression that ultimately served only to favour the Emperor's treasury and to damage the poor, leaving the commons suffering under multiple layers of injustice. Berry, Pipes, Schmidt, Lindsay and Day have argued cogently that the suppression of the account was due to the complaints of the Muscovy Company, who claimed that Fletcher's text was so offensive to the Russians that it would discredit the Company in Russia and adversely effect the success of the Muscovy trade (Berry 150–4, Fletcher 18–19, Fletcher xxiv–xxvi, Lindsay 312–27, Day 221–43). There were further reasons why Fletcher's text may have been deemed controversial, in particular its consideration of tyranny in government and resistance to a tyrant, the injustices of monopolies and a harsh critique of popery – all politically charged points of discussion in the late Elizabethan regime (Stout, Strange and Wonderfull 153–63).…”