"On the Eminent Dr Edward Brown's Travels": A Familial Network of Creation in the Philosophical Transactions

Abstract

This article explores the authorship of knowledge in the late seventeenth century, with a focus on Dr. Edward Browne's (1644-1708 contributions to the Royal Society and travel literature. An analysis of the manuscript sources and ensuing printed accounts of Browne's 1668-1669 European travels gives rise to three key conclusions: firstly, that correspondence sent to the Society's secretary, Henry Oldenburg (1619-1677), was not always unmediated and was at times edited by agents at home (in this case, Thomas Browne [1605-1682); secondly, that articles sent directly to Oldenburg by Society agents were also subject to editorial influences other than those of the primary author; and, finally, that the family was a key network of creation, both in articles printed in the Philosophical Transactions and in independent works. Throughout, it will become clear that Edward Browne's publications are not straightforwardly single authored: rather, they are the result of a wide variety of often obscured familial and social interactions.1 This poem is printed in Thomas Flatman's Poems and Songs (London, 1686). A version of this poem is preserved in the commonplace book of Elizabeth Lyttelton, Edward Browne's sister (Cambridge UL MS 8460, fol. 33). 2 Flatman was elected to the Royal Society four months after Edward on 30 April 1668, but Edward's journals and the Browne family letters suggest that the Brownes knew Flatman and his kin outside of the confines of the Royal Society: Edward's 1664 journal (BL Sloane MS 1906) mentions that he "had discourse with one Mr Flatman a chirugion" (fol. 46v); in the late 1670s, a postscript from Edward's sister Elizabeth Lyttelton to Edward's wife Henrietta in London asks her "to Put a frame & glass to the picture for Mr Flatman a very good one" (BL Sloane MS 1847, fol. 224v). Several other references to the Flatman family appear in the family letters of the 1670s.

Writing Mobile Lives, 1500–1700

“…27 Just as Adam Smyth found in English church wardens' records and financial account books, life-writing and written mobile lives can be found in unexpected places, and often travelled between textual forms, showing signs of processing and editing in between (Smyth 2010). Likewise, travel writing usually traversed across different media from initial notes to the final accounts that were revised, edited, and more polished, hitting home that travel writing was usually written after travels themselves had already ended (Wyatt 2021).…”

“…Travel writings were socially constructed texts that endured numerous editorial interventions. Paying more attention to the 'traveller' in these texts helps place the authorial self in context, at least when we know when the traveller sat down and wrote their texts, and what kinds of resources they had at their disposal (Wyatt 2021).…”

“…These textual forms included manuscripts, commonplace books, family books, logbooks, diaries, spiritual autobiographies, and miscellaneous notebooks. Some of the texts processed and recorded themes that were eventually published, while some remained in manuscripts (Wyatt 2021). These texts offer both new data and material insights into the preservation and recording of travel experiences, and how travellers selected, processed, and decided what to preserve about themselves and their travels for posterity.…”