John Locke and Travel Writing : Philosophy, Politics, Places

Lord Peter King, in his Life of John Locke (1829), remarked that Locke “employed his leisure in reading books of travels, of the best of which he was a great admirer.” This book, drawing upon and considerably expanding the contents of a 2022 special issue of Studi Lockiani, provides recent findings and discoveries, pressing into uncharted areas.

This book offers an exciting array of contributions to the study of Locke’s own study of travel literature. The importance of its vast topic was acknowledged from the beginning of serious secondary writing about him. Lord Peter King, in his Life of John Locke (1829), remarked that Locke “employed his leisure in reading books of travels, of the best of which he was a great admirer.” This book, drawing upon and considerably expanding the contents of a 2022 special issue of Studi Lockiani, provides recent findings and discoveries, pressing into uncharted areas. The authors and editors use a wide array of sources, treating “travel literature” broadly and capaciously to include the grand works of travel represented by Hakluyt, Purchas, Bernier, Thévenot, Ramusio, Ogilby, and Sagard, as well as specific “relations” of travels to the far reaches of the world, information-conveying correspondence, notebook entries, and maps (especially when annotated). The topic is of great interest not only to Locke scholars, but also to all those investigating cultural anthropology, political philosophy, the expansion of colonialism, the history of ideas, and their circulation in the early modern period.