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ENLIGHTENED ERUDITION AND THE POLITICS OF READING IN JOHN TOLAND'S CIRCLE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2006

J. A. I. CHAMPION
J. A. I. CHAMPION
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London
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Abstract

The dense marginal annotation made by freethinker, John Toland (1670–1722) and republican author and parliamentarian, Sir Robert Molesworth (1656–1725) on a copy of Martin Martin's Western Islands (1716) is an exceptional source for exposing the relationship between elite sociability and intellectual conversation. As an example of collaborative serial reading the case-study is unique, and allows a number of historical enquiries. Contextualizing Toland's and Molesworth's collaborative reading of the Royal Society sponsored work with the political and anticlerical projects both men pursued, the article argues that the surviving annotations are emblematic of the erudite, but still politically engaged, republic of letters of the period. Establishing the polemical engagement with clerical discourses about superstition, credulity, and ‘natural’ knowledge, by examining the literary, intellectual, and personal rhetoric at work in the marginalia, the article explores a case-study of cultural and intellectual debate at work in the early English Enlightenment.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 111 - 141
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to Michael Hunter who generously shared his ideas and approaches. Other scholars have made astute and thought-provoking suggestions: thanks to Alan Harrison, Mark Goldie, Judith Walkowitz, Sean Greenberg, Blair Worden, and Mark Jenner. I am also very grateful to the two readers who made insightful and thought-provoking suggestions for revision. Versions were delivered to audiences in London, Dublin, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Oxford, Southampton, and Teramo.