Ben Jonson's Walk to Scotland

An accessible edition of a recently discovered account of Ben Jonson's walk to Edinburgh with full annotation and contextual essays.

This is the first publication of a recently discovered account of Ben Jonson's walk to Scotland in 1618. Supported by contextual essays, this unique firsthand narrative provides researchers and graduate students with an invaluable insight into Jonson's life and work, and the social and cultural history of early modern Britain.At the heart of this book is a previously unpublished account of Ben Jonson's celebrated walk from London to Edinburgh in the summer of 1618. This unique firsthand narrative provides us with an insight into where Jonson went, whom he met, and what he did on the way. James Loxley, Anna Groundwater and Julie Sanders present a clear, readable and fully annotated edition of the text. An introduction and a series of contextual essays shed further light on topics including the evidence of provenance and authorship, Jonson's contacts throughout Britain, his celebrity status, and the relationships between his 'foot voyage' and other famous journeys of the time. The essays also illuminate wider issues, such as early modern travel and political and cultural relations between England and Scotland. It is an invaluable volume for scholars and upper-level students of Ben Jonson studies, early modern literature, seventeenth-century social history, and cultural geography.