Abstract
One rarely thinks of Robert Hooke in the context of early English travel writing, much less as a potential contributor to that genre. When we look closer at Hooke's project of directing travel and travel discourse in the last decades of the seventeenth century, however, as well as his role as editor of one of the most popular and influential travelogues of the 1680s, Hooke's impact on travel writing – and, indirectly, the rhetorical practices that filter into the early novel – becomes more tangible than we have yet acknowledged. This essay examines Hooke's role in co-producing Robert Knox's An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon (1681) and suggests that Hooke helped to shape not only Knox's relation of natural history but also his authorial identity and his truth claims. This deep collaboration therefore offers a concrete example of how scientific interests shaped standards of veracity at a crucial moment in the history of prose narrative.
Published Version
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