Cedric C. Brown is a former Professor of English at the University of Reading, Dean of the Faculty, and external Professorial Research Consultant. A specialist in seventeenth-century literature, he is well known internationally as a Miltonist. He is also an archival scholar and a student of social communications, like letters, and the materialities of gift exchange. Recent work has extended to provincial Jesuit miscellanies, but the major project has been the discourses of friendship, mainly studied in lived rather than fictional situations. He is also founder general editor of the large, long-running book series Early Modern Literature in History.

This investigation reveals how the discourse of friendship functions in an array of seventeenth-century social relationships in a way that no other study does. It is a profoundly useful guide to an elusive and perilously expansive subject.

• SECTION I: JOHN EVELYN, JEREMY TAYLOR AND ELIZABETH CAREY: FRIENDSHIP, RELIGION AND 'THE MATERIAL INTERCOURSES OF OUR LIFE'; SECTION II: MILTON, FRIENDSHIP, AND READER-FRIENDS; SECTION III: DOROTHY OSBORNE, WILLIAM TEMPLE, LORD ARLINGTON, AND OTHERS: FRIENDSHIP IN PRIVATE AND POLITICS

Cedric C. Brown is a former Professor of English at the University of Reading, Dean of the Faculty, and external Professorial Research Consultant. A specialist in seventeenth-century literature, he is well known internationally as a Miltonist. He is also an archival scholar and a student of social communications, like letters, and the materialities of gift exchange. Recent work has extended to provincial Jesuit miscellanies, but the major project has been the discourses of friendship, mainly studied in lived rather than fictional situations. He is also founder general editor of the large, long-running book series Early Modern Literature in History.

This investigation reveals how the discourse of friendship functions in an array of seventeenth-century social relationships in a way that no other study does. It is a profoundly useful guide to an elusive and perilously expansive subject.

• SECTION I: JOHN EVELYN, JEREMY TAYLOR AND ELIZABETH CAREY: FRIENDSHIP, RELIGION AND 'THE MATERIAL INTERCOURSES OF OUR LIFE'; SECTION II: MILTON, FRIENDSHIP, AND READER-FRIENDS; SECTION III: DOROTHY OSBORNE, WILLIAM TEMPLE, LORD ARLINGTON, AND OTHERS: FRIENDSHIP IN PRIVATE AND POLITICS

Cedric C. Brown is a former Professor of English at the University of Reading, Dean of the Faculty, and external Professorial Research Consultant. A specialist in seventeenth-century literature, he is well known internationally as a Miltonist. He is also an archival scholar and a student of social communications, like letters, and the materialities of gift exchange. Recent work has extended to provincial Jesuit miscellanies, but the major project has been the discourses of friendship, mainly studied in lived rather than fictional situations. He is also founder general editor of the large, long-running book series Early Modern Literature in History.

This investigation reveals how the discourse of friendship functions in an array of seventeenth-century social relationships in a way that no other study does. It is a profoundly useful guide to an elusive and perilously expansive subject.

• SECTION I: JOHN EVELYN, JEREMY TAYLOR AND ELIZABETH CAREY: FRIENDSHIP, RELIGION AND 'THE MATERIAL INTERCOURSES OF OUR LIFE'; SECTION II: MILTON, FRIENDSHIP, AND READER-FRIENDS; SECTION III: DOROTHY OSBORNE, WILLIAM TEMPLE, LORD ARLINGTON, AND OTHERS: FRIENDSHIP IN PRIVATE AND POLITICS